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SERMONS. 


BT 


JOSEPH  ADDISON  ALEXANDER,  D.D. 


TWO    VOLUMES    IN    ONE. 

VOLUME    I. 


NEW  YORK : 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER  &  CO.,  654  BROADWAY. 

1870. 


Ektkked,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1860,  by 
CHARLES    SCKIBNEE, 

In  tlie  Clerk's  Office  of  tlie  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southern 
District  of  New  York. 


•^X  F.  TROW, 

°EP.,   AND   XLSCTBOTTPEX, 

t,  New  York. 


A  'i  7  -. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I. 


PAOl 
I. 

Mark  1,  1. — The  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son 

of  God, 7 

II. 

Matthew  2,  2. — Where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of  the  Jews  ?        .     27 

III. 
John  13,  7. — What  I  do  thou  knowest  not  now  ;  but  thou  shalt 

know  liereafter, 46 

IV. 

John  1,  29. — Behold  the  Lamb  of  God, 66 

V. 
KoMANS  1,  25. — They  worshipped  and  served  the  creature  more 
j^  than  the  Creator, 85 

VI. 
John  3,  36. — He  that  bclieveth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life  : 
and  lie  that  believeth  not  the  Son  shall  not  see  life,  but  the 
wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him,        ......  106 

VII. 
Luke  17,  32. — Remember  Lot's  wife, 124 


i 


4:  CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I. 

VIII. 
1  John  3,  2. — It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  vre  shall  be,        .        .  '.44 

IX. 

Luke  11,  26. — The  last  state  of  that  man  is  worse  than  the  first,     167 

X. 

Romans  16,  27. — To  God  only  wise,  be  glory  through  Jesus  Christ 

forever.     Amen, 188 

XI. 

Luke  14,  17. — Come,  for  all  things  are  now  ready,        .         .         .  209 

XII. 

PROTERns  22,  2. — The  rich  and  poor  meet  together ;  the  Lord  is 

the  maker  of  them  all, 227 

XIII. 

Romans  11,  22. — Behold  therefore  the  goodness  and  severity  of 
God ;  on  them  which  fell,  severity ;  but  toward  thee,  good- 
ness, if  thou  continue  in  his  goodness  ;  otherwise,  thou  also 
Shalt  be  cut  off, 249 

XIV. 

I  Corinthians  15,  33. — Be  not  deceived ! 264 

XV. 

Acts  28,  28. — Be  it  known  therefore  unto  you,  that  the  salvation 

of  God  is  sent  unto  the  Gentiles,  and  that  they  will  hear  it,      280 

XVI. 
1  Peter  1,  6. — Kept  by  the  power  of  God  through  faith  unto  sal- 
vation,   302 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I.  5 

PAGE 

XVII. 
Titus  2,  11-15. — For  the  grace  of  God  that  bringcth  salvation 
hath  appeared  to  all  men,  teaching  us  that,  denying  ungodli- 
ness and  worldly  lusts,  we  should  live  soberly,  righteously, 
and  godly,  in  this  present  world  ;  looking  for  that  blessed 
hope,  and  the  glorious  appearing  of  the  great  God  and  our 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ ;  who  gave  himself  for  us,  that  he  nnght 
redeem  us  from  all  iniquity,  and  purify  unto  himself  a  pecu- 
liar people,  zealous  of  good  works.  These  things  speak,  and 
exhort,  and  rebuke  with  all  authority.  Let  no  man  despise 
thee, 317 

XVIIL 

Luke  22,  32. — When  thou  art  converted,  strengthen  thy  brethren,  3c 5 

XIX. 

Luke  9,  60. — Let  the   dead  bury  their  dead ;  but  go  thou  and 

preach  the  kingdom  of  God,  ......  354 

XX. 

Mark  13,  37. — What  I  say  unto  you,  I  say  unto  s.\  :  Watch  !       .  377 

XXI. 

Mattuew  2i,  6. — The  end  is  not  yet, 896 


SERMO  isrs 


I. 


Mark  1,  1. — ^The  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Chiist  the  Son 
of  God. 

AiioNG  tlic  incidental  disadvantages  attending  tlie 
inestimable  privilege  of  early  and  life-long  familiarity 
witk.  tlie  "Word  of  God,  is  tlie  habit  of  confounding 
things  really  distinct,  and  especially  of  overlooking 
the  characteristic  peculiarities  of  the  sacred  writers, 
which  were  not  at  all  destroyed  by  inspiration,  and 
a  due  regard  to  which  is  often  necessary  to  their  just 
interpretation.  In  no  part  of  the  Bible  is  this  error 
more  common  or  injurious  than  in  the  Gospels,  which 
the  great  majority  even  of  devout  and  believing 
readers  are  too  much  in  the  habit  of  regarding  as  pre- 
cisely alike  in  plan .  and  pui-pose,  whereas  no  other 
books  on  the  same  subject  could  be  more  distinctly 
marked  by  iudividual  peculiarities,  some  of  which  aro 
of  the  most  minute  and  unimportant  nature  in  them- 
selves, but  for  that  very  reason  less  likely  to  have  been 
invented  or  contrived  for  any  purposes  of  deception. 

Many  who  have  read  the  Gospels  all  their  lives, 


g  SERMONS. 

would  be  surprised  to  liear  that  Matthew  uses  the 
word  "  then  "  more  frequently  than  all  the  others  put 
together — that  Mark  is  almost  equally  exclusive  in 
his  use  of  "  immediately  " — that  John  alone  has  the 
double  Amen  Amen — and  a  multitude  of  other  minute 
differences  equally  unimportant  in  themselves,  but 
equally  demonstrative  of  individuality  and  independ- 
ence in  the  several  wi-iters.  The  same  thing  is  true  as 
to  other  diiferences  more  important  in  themselves,  and 
relating  not  to  mere  forms  of  expression,  but  to  plan 
and  method.  Thus  Matthew  cites  the  prophecies, 
and  points  out  their  fulfilment  so  much  more  fre- 
quently than  Mark  and  Luke,  that  his  gospel  is  by 
some  regarded,  not  so  much  as  a  history,  as  a  histori- 
cal argument,  intended  to  show  that  Jesus  was  the 
Messiah  of  the  prophets.  Mark  is  distinguished  by 
his  use  of  Latin  words  and  explanation  of  Jewish 
customs,  showing  that  he  wrote  immediately  for  Gen- 
tile readers  ;  on  the  other  hand,  he  frequently  records 
the  Aramaic  or  vernacular  expressions  used  by  Christ, 
with  a  Greek  translation  ;  such  as  Talcumi,  Ephphatha, 
Corban,  Abba  father.  Another  peculiarity  of  this 
evangelist  is,  that  to  him  we  are  indebted  for  almost 
all  our  knowledge  of  our  Saviour's  looks  and  gestures ; 
as  we  are  to  Luke  for  many  interesting  glimpses  of 
his  devotional  habits;  such  as  his  spending  whole 
nights  in  prayer,  his  praying  at  his  baptism,  and 
before  the  choice  of  his  apostles,  and  in  other  cases. 
John,  besides  the  general  differences,  arising  from  the 
commonly  admitted  fact  that  he  wrote  to  complete 
or  supplement  the  others,  dwells  chiefly  on  our  Lord's 
discoursoe,  and  relates  his  actions  chiefly  as  connected 


MARK  1,  1.  9 

with.  them.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  him  we  owe 
our  knowledge  of  the  chronology  or  dates  ©f  our 
Lord's  ministry — it  is  he  that  enumerates  the  pass- 
overs  and  several  other  feasts  included  in  that  period, 
and  thus  shows  us  that  his  ministry  or  public  life  on 
earth  continued  for  above  three  years. 

These  points  of  difference  between  the  gospels  are 
selected  out  of  many  that  might  just  as  easily  be 
given,  in  illustration  of  the  general  statement,  that 
while  all  were  equally  inspired  and  all  are  perfectly 
harmonious,  each  writer  has  his  own  peculiarities,  not 
only  of  expression,  but  of  plan  and  method.  This  is 
a  matter  not  of  learned  criticism,  but  within  the  reach 
of  every  careful  and  attentive  reader,  and  if  properly 
noticed,  would  greatly  tend  not  only  to  elucidate 
the  gospels,  but  to  make  them  interesting — in  other 
words,  to  aid  both  the  understanding  and  the  memory. 
A  due  regard  to  these  peculiarities  would  lead  to  the 
correction  of  another  error,  far  too  prevalent  in  refer- 
ence to  this  delightful  part  of  the  Scriptures — that  of 
regarding  the  four  gospels  not  as  comjjlete  histories, 
but  as  mere  collections  of  materials,  out  of  which  we 
are  to  frame  the  history  for  ourselves ;  a  mistake 
which  has  occasioned  not  only  a  vast  waste  of  time 
and  labour  in  attempts  to  reduce  the  four  accounts  to 
one  continued  narrative ;  but  has  also  contributed 
directly  to  the  disregard  of  those  peculiarities  which 
have  been  already  mentioned  as  belonging  to  the 
several  books,  but  which  of  course  are  overlooked  and 
confounded  in  the  process  of  condensing  four  books 
into  one. 

The  simple  truth  appears  to  be,  that  God,  for  wise 

VOL.  I. — 1* 


10  SERMONS. 

and  lioly  purposes,  vrhicli  are  only  in  part  visible  to 
us,  or  discovered  by  us,  was  pleased  to  put  tbe  life  of 
Christ  on  record  for  tlie  edification  of  bis  people,  and 
the  glory  of  bis  own  name  ;  not  in  one,  but  in  four 
distinct  accounts,  eacb  complete  in  itself,  witb  refer- 
ence to  its  own  specific  purpose,  and  the  definite  im- 
pression it  was  meant  to  make  upon  the  readers' 
mind,  yet  all  completing  one  another  in  relation  to 
the  general  aggregate  or  sum  total  of  the  impression 
meant  to  be  conveyed.  In  this  respect  they  have 
been  likened  to  four  portraits,  or  four  landscapes,  ex- 
hibiting one  and  the  same  object,  but  in  difi'erent 
lights  and  from  different  points  of  view,  yet  all  of 
course  harmonious  and  consistent.  As  it  would  be 
absurd  to  cut  up  and  amalgamate  the  paintings,  so  is 
it  no  less  absurd  to  destroy  the  individuality  of  the 
gospels  by  reducing  them  to  one.  They  are,  indeed, 
to  be  harmonized  in  order  to  elucidate  their  meaning, 
and  exhibit  their  consistency,  but  not  in  such  a  way 
as  to  destroy  their  separate  existence,  or  confound 
their  individual  peculiarities.  'No  harmony  can,  or 
ought  to  take  the  place  of  the  original  gospels,  which 
were  meant  to  be  read  separately  to  the  end  of  time, 
and  with  a  careful  observation  of  their  several  charac- 
teristics, even  of  such  as  in  themselves  may  seem  to 
be  wholly  unimportant. 

Among  these  is  the  way  in  which  they  open,  and 
the  point  from  which  they  set  out,  in  recording  the 
biography  of  Jesus  Christ.  Matthew  begins  with 
his  genealogy,  and  shows  by  a  formal  and  authentic 
pedigree,  perliaps  extracted  from  ofiicial  records,  his 
descent  from  Abraham  and  David.     Tliis  is  not  so 


MAEK  1,  1.  11 

mucli  a  part  of  Ms  narrative  as  a  documentary  intro- 
duction to  it,  after  -wliicli  lie  sets  out  from  the  concep- 
tion and  nativity  of  tlie  Saviour.  Luke  goes  back 
to  the  previous  conception  and  nativity  of  John  the 
Baptist,  his  forerunner.  John  goes  still  further  back, 
to  teach  the  doctrine  of  his  pro-existence  ;  while  Mark 
omits  all  this,  plunging  at  once  into  the  midst  of  his 
subject,  and  beginning  with  the  official  life  or  public 
ministry  of  Jesus  ;  "  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ." 

These  words  admit  of  several  constructions,  each 
of  which  has  something  to  recommend  it,  and  none  of 
which  are  utterly  exclusive  of  each  other  ;  so  that  all 
of  them  may  be  allowed  to  suggest  something  to  the 
mind  of  the  reader. 

The  simplest  construction,  and  the  one  most  proba- 
bly intended  by  the  writer,  is  that  which  makes  this 
a  description  of  the  whole  book,  or  a  statement  of  its 
subject.  This  is  the  beginning  of  the  life  of  Christ, 
or  here  beginneth  his  recorded  history.  It  is  equally 
grammatical,  however,  to  connect  the  words  with 
what  follows,  as  a  part  of  the  same  context ;  "  the 
beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  was  as  it  is 
wi'itten  in  the  prophets  ;  "  or,  "  the  beginning  of  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  was  John  the  Baptist  preach- 
ing in  the  wilderness."  These  are  not  only  positive 
constructions,  but  suggest  important  facts  in  the  life 
of  Christ,  as  will  be  afterwards  particularly  mentioned. 

In  the  mean  time  I  invite  your  attention  to  two 
topics,  suggested  by  the  words  themselves,  however 
they  may  be  connected  with  what  follows  ;  one  of 
which  is  reallv  ii:  eluded   in  the  other,  or  is  a  mere 


12  SERM0N8. 

specification  of  it.  Tlie  first  and  most  general  of  these 
topics  is  the  gospel  /  and  tlie  second  and  more  spe- 
cific, is  the  heginning  of  the  gospel.  Either  cf  these 
would  be  snflicicnt  by  itself  to  furnish  ample  food  for 
meditation  and  instruction,  even  if  we  merged  the 
mere  beginning  in  the  whole,  of  which  it  is  the  part, 
or  considered  the  whole  only  with  respect  to  its  be- 
ginning. I  prefer,  however,  to  present  the  two  pre- 
cisely as  they  lie  together  in  the  text,  only  giving  the 
precedence  to  the  general  subject,  and  the  second 
place  to  its  specification.  Or,  in  other  words,  first 
considering  the  gospel  as  a  whole,  and  then  the  be- 
ginning of  it  in  particular. 

In  carrying  out  this  suggestion,  it  may  be  con- 
venient to  resolve  each  of  these  topics  into  two 
inquiries,  imder  the  general  subject  of  the  gospel : 
Considering  first.  What  it  is  ? — then,  Whose  it  is  ? — 
Under  the  more  specific  head.  Of  the  beginning  of 
the  Gospel,  asking  first,  Where  it  began  of  old? 
And  secondly.  Where  it  begins  now  ?  By  this 
division  and  arrangement,  I  may  hope  to  assist  both 
your  understandings  and  your  memories  in  the  brief 
examination  which  I  now  propose  to  make  of  this 
interesting  passage,  not  as  a  matter  of  mere  curious 
speculation,  but  as  a  source  of  instruction  and  im- 
provement. 

I.  Our  first  theme,  then,  is  the  Gospel ;  and  our 
first  inquiry.  What  it  is ! 

This  may  seem,  to  some,  too  elementary  a  ques- 
tion, and  to  others,  too  extensive  ;  but  I  merely  ask 
you  to  consider  for  a  moment,  and  in  quick  succes- 


MARK  1,  1.  13 

sion,  the  elements  really  included  in  this  most  familiar 
term,  which,  like  others  of  the  same  sort,  often  con- 
veys very  vagne  ideas  even  to  the  minds  of  those  who 
most  familiarly  employ  it. 

There  are  few  kinds  of  knowledge,  and  religions 
kno-wledgc  is  certainly  not  one  of  them,  in  which  it 
Is  not  often  both  agreeable  and  useful  to  go  back  to 
elementary  ideas  and  first  principles,  and  even  to  the 
simple  definition  of  the  most  familiar  terms.  I  do  not 
scruple,  then,  to  put  the  question  both  to  you  and  to 
myself ;  What  is  the  Gospel  f — and  to  answer,  in  the 
first  place  :  (1.)  That  the  word,  both  in  Greek  and  Eng- 
lish, originally  means,  good  news,  glad  tidings — a 
delightful  phrase,  expressing  a  delightful  tiling; 
awakening  a  thousand  sweet  and  tender  recollections. 
Who  has  never  heard  good  news  ?  "Who  cannot  call 
to  mind  the  thrill  of  joy  which  such  intelligence  once 
darted  through'  him  ?  To  some  the  experience  may 
be  fresh,  to  others,  faded  ;  perhaps  dimmed  and  neu- 
tralized by  many  an  intervening  alternation  or  vicissi- 
tude of  bad  news  and  of  mournful  tidings.  Yet  even 
in  this  case  it  is  often  possible  to  look  back  through 
these  intervening  changes,  and  to  reproduce  in  some 
degree  the  exquisite  delight  occasioned  at  some  dis- 
tant period,  by  the  reception  of  good  news  from  some 
beloved  object,  perhaps  far  removed.  This  is  an 
experience  which  never  can  grow  obsolete.  Increas- 
ing facilities  of  communication  only  multiply  its 
causes  and  occasions.  Even  now,  how  many  arc  re- 
joicing in  glad  tidings  by  the  last  arrival  from  some 
distant  shore ;  how  many  anxiously,  yet  hopefully, 
expecting  to  receive  them  by  the  next !     I  appeal  to 


14:  SERMONS. 

these  associations,  not  for  any  rhetorical  or  sentimen- 
tal purpose,  but  simply  to  awaken  the  appropriate 
feeling  which  belongs  to  the  very  definition  of  the 
gosj)el — good  news — good  news — not  in  some  abstruse 
or  transcendental  sense,  but  in  the  plain,  homely, 
every-day  sense  of  the  same  words,  as  employed  in 
the  dialect  of  common  life.  Why  is  it  that  the  very 
terms  and  phrases  which  inflame  or  agitate  us  in 
our  ordinary  parlance,  fall  so  lifeless  on  the  ear  and 
heart,  when  uttered  in  connection  with  religion  ? 
Partly  because  our  whole  state  of  feeling  on  religious 
subjects  is  too  cold  and  dead  ;  partly  because  we  wil- 
fully divorce  religious  terms  from  their  natural  asso- 
ciation, and  treat  them  as  belonging  to  another. 

Gospel,  I  tell  you,  is  good  news,  in  exactly  the 
same  sense  that  it  was  good  news  when  you  heard  of 
the  recovery  or  escape  of  a  parent  or  a  child,  a  hus- 
band or  a  wife,  a  brother  or  a  sister,  from  some  fear- 
ful peril.  Kecall  that  feeling,  and  then  use  it  to 
explain  the  phrase  good  news  as  a  definition  of  the 
gospel.  If  you  leave  this  out,  your  whole  conception 
is  a  false  one.  Whatever  else  may  yet  be  added,  and 
it  is  much,  this  is  the  original,  essential,  fundamen- 
tal notion.  There  can  be  no  gospel  without  good 
news,  though  there  may  in  a  restricted  sense  be  good 
news  where  there  is,  alas !  no  gospel. 

(2.)  Having  settled  this  as  the  primary,  elementary 
idea  of  the  gospel,  as  glad  tidings — -just  as  the  same 
words  are  used  to  signify  good  news  from  man  to 
man — from  house  to  house — from  one  place  to 
another,  such  as  burdens  our  mails,  and  thrills  along 
our  telegraphic  wires,  let  lis  now  take  another  step, 


MARK  1,  1.  15 

and  add  to  tliis  simple  definition  of  tlie  gospel,  as  a 
term  of  Seriptnre  and  religion,  that  it  is  good  news 
from  God  to  man — from  heaven  to  earth — from  the 
infinitely  blessed  and  the  infinitely  holy,  to  the  low- 
est depths  of  human  wretchedness  and  sin.  It  is  no 
good  news  from  America  to  Europe,  or  from  the  old 
world  to  the  new  ;  it  is  a  voice  from  heaven,  breaking 
through  the  silence  or  the  discord  of  our  natural  con- 
dition. Oh,  if  we  were  half  as  sensible  of  this  condi- 
tion as  we  are  of  temporal  anxieties,  and  fears,  and 
wants — instead  of  listening  coldly  to  this  news  from 
heaven,  we  should  wait  and  watch  for  it,  as  eagerly 
as  any  mother  now  lies  sleepless  listening  for  the 
signal  of  a  new  arrival  to  relieve  her  fears  and  fill 
her  cup  to  overflowing  by  glad  tidings  from  her  dis- 
tant child.  Oh,  could  the  tumult  of  this  life  cease 
to  fill  our  ears  even  for  a  moment,  we  might  hear 
another  soimd,  to  which  we  are  now.  deaf — good  news, 
good  news  from  heaven — from  heaven  to  earth — from 
God  to  man — to  us — to  you — to  me — -glad  tidings. 
This  is  gospel,  but  is  it  the  meaning  of  that  word  to 
you,  my  hearer  ? 

(3.)  Now  let  us  make  our  definition  more  precise, 
by  adding  still  another  tenn.  Good  news,  glad 
tidings,  from  the  upper  world,  would  be  delightful  if 
they  related  only  to  our  natural  necessities.  If  the 
voice  of  God  were  heard  proclaiming  peace  instead  of 
war,  abundance  in  the  place  of  want,  and  health  for 
sickness — how  might  we  rejoice,  nay,  how  do  we 
really  rejoice  in  the  sure  though  silent  pledge  of 
fruitful  seasons  and  abundant  harvests.  But  these, 
however  free  and  entitled  to  our  warmest  thanks,  can 


1Q  SERMONS. 

never  meet  our  chief  necessitie-s — can  never  satisfy 
the  soiiL  Its  cravings  are  for  spiritual  good ;  its  worst 
pains  are  the  consciousness  of  guilt,  remorse  of  con- 
science, and  a  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment.  These 
may  be  smothered  for  a  time,  but  not  forever. 
Worldly  prosperity  may  hide  theui  from  the  view, 
and  drive  them  from  the  thoughts,  just  as  the  excite- 
ment of  business  or  of  pleasure  may  distract  the  mind 
of  the  diseased  and  dying ;  but  only  to  rush  back 
again  with  tenfold  anguish,  when  the  momentary 
interruption  shall  have  ceased.  My  hearers,  no  good 
news  is  good  news  in  the  highest  sense,  unless  it 
reaches  these  necessities — supplies  these  wants,  and 
remedies  these  evils.  "Without  this,  good  news,  even 
though  sent  from  heaven,  even  though  uttered  by 
the  voice  of  God,  would  be  but  like  the  good  news 
of  some  half-forgotten,  social  or  political  success,  at 
which  your  heart ^has  long  since  ceased  to  beat,  your 
eye  to  sparkle,  and  your  blood  to  boil. 

"With  such  experiences,  and  who  is  utterly  without 
them,  no  good  news  is  good  news  to  your  sober  judg- 
ment and  your  immortal  soul — but  good  news  in  rela- 
tion to  your  sins  and  your  salvation,  your  future, 
your  eternity.  Oh,  if  the  mask  could  now  be  taken 
from  every  heart,  it  would  be  seen  that  many  who 
appear  engrossed  with  temporal  and  secular  intelli- 
gence, are  really  longing  for  good  news  of  a  very 
different  kind — for  the  glad  tidings  of  forgiveness, 
reconciliation,  safety — for  the  joyful  news  that  God 
is  not  their  enemy,  that  hell  is  not  their  portion,  that 
they  may  be,  that  they  are  entitled  to  a  share  in  that  per- 
petual inheritance — that  indefeasible  possession  which 


MARK  1,  1.  yj 

lies  far  beyond  the  changes,  and  panics,  and  convul- 
sions of  this  present  life.  You  must  hear  such  news 
sooner  or  later,  or  be  wretched ;  and  such,  such 
news  you  may  hear  now,  in  "  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  the  Son  of  God." 

2.  This  leads  me  to  the  second  question  under 
the  general  topic  of  the  gospel :  We  have  seen  what  it 
is — good  news,  good  news  from  God  to  man — good 
news  of  spiritual  good,  forgiveness  and  salvation  ;  but 
even  this  view  cannot  be  complete  without  consider- 
ing whose,  as  well  as  what  it  is.  It  is  not  an  imper- 
sonal or  abstract  gospel ;  it  is  not  the  gospel  of  man, 
nor  yet  of  an  absolute  and  distant  God  ;  it  is  the 
gospel  both  of  God  and  man  ;  it  is  described  expressly 
in  the  text  as  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God.  I  know  of  nothing  in  the  Scriptures  more 
habitually  slighted  and  imperfectly  apprehended  than 
the  names  or  titles  of  the  Saviour.  I  could  scarcely 
have  repeated  half  a  dozen  words  conveying  less  to 
multitudes  of  minds  than  those  just  uttered ;  which 
some  of  you  perhaps  regard  precisely  as  you  would 
the  names  and  surnames  of  a  friend  or  enemy  ;  or 
even  if  you  do  admit  the  dignity  of  him  who  is  thus 
described,  it  is  only  in  the  general,  and  without  any 
definite  perception  of  the  importance  of  the  terms 
employed.  So  inveterate  and  hurtful  is  this  habit, 
that  it  may  be  well,  occasionally,  to  remember  what 
we  all  know,  if  we  would  consider  and  apply  it ;  that 
all  names  are  originally  significant — that  divine  names 
are  especially  and  always  so  ;  that  the  names  of  the 
Redeemer  were  designed  to  be  descriptive  and  expres- 


18  SERMONS. 

sive,  not  conventiona  and  formal ;  and  tliat  when  they 
are  aceumnlated  and  combined,  it  is  not  without  mean- 
ing, but  every  name  is  really  suggestive  of  some  great 
truth  or  important  feature  in  the  person  or  offices  of 
Christ,  and  in  the  method  of  redemption.  This, 
which  is  true  in  general,  is  emphatically  true  of  the  sol- 
emn nomenclature  with  which  Mark  begins  his  Gospel. 
(1.)  It  is  "  the  Gospel  of  Jesus,"  i.  e.,  the  good  news 
of  a  Saviour  :  "  Thou  shalt  call  his  name  Jesus,"  said 
the  angel  who  announced  his  birth  to  Joseph,  "  for 
he  shall  save  his  people  from  their  sins."  Even 
Joshua,  whose  name  is  identical  in  Hebrew,  was  so 
called  prophetically,  as  the  saviour  or  deliverer  of 
Israel  from  enemies  and  dangers ;  and  in  this  he 
was  a  type  of  him  who  was  to  come,  not  as  a  mili- 
tary conqueror  and  earthly  prince,  though  men  so  ex- 
pected him ;  not  as  the  deliverer  of  the  Jews  from 
Eoman  vassalage,  and  the  restorer  of  their  ancient 
independence ;  but  as  a  Saviour  from  a  far  worse 
bondage,  and  a  more  terrific  ruin, — from  perdition, 
from  damnation,  not  of  angels,  not  of  devils,  not  of 
men  without  exception  or  discrimination ;  but  of 
those  predestinated  to  belief  in  him ;  his  people, 
the  Saviour  of  his  people ;  not  from  temporal  or 
physical  distresses,  but  from  sin ;  not  from  the  sins  of 
others,  but  their  own  ;  not  from  its  effects,  but  from 
itself ;  not  merely  in  the  life,  but  in  the  heart ;  not 
merely  in  the  stream,  but  in  the  spring,  the  source, 
the  principle,  the  essence.  Yes,  the  gospel  is  not  only 
good  news  of  a  Saviour,  but  of  him  who  came,  of 
him  who  was  called  Jesus,  because  he  was  to  save  his 
people  from  their  sins. 


MAKE  1,  1.  29 

(2.)  But  the  gospel  is  also  tbe  gospel  of  Cnrist ;  to 
many  ears  a  mere  tautology,  an  irksome  repetition,  an 
unmeaning  pleonasm  or  superfluity,  or  at  the  most, 
a  simple  combination  of  inseparable  names,  like  Julius 
Caesar  or  George  "Washington.  But  I  rejoice  to  know 
my  hearers,  that  "  ye  have  not  so  learned  Christ,"  not 
even  tlie  name  of  Christ.  Tlie  very  children  in  the 
Sunday  School  know  better,  for  they  know  tliat 
Christ  in  Greek,  and  Messias  in  Hebrew  mean  an- 
ointed, and  that  anointing  was  the  Scripture  symbol 
under  the  Old  Testament  for  spiritual  effusions,  espe- 
cially for  those  which  qualifled  men  for  the  great  repre- 
Bcntative  office  of  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King,  and  that 
these  offices  themselves  represent  corresponding  parts 
of  the  Eedeemer's  work  ;  in  other  words,  that  he  was 
in  the  highest  sense  to  be  the  Prophet,  Priest,  and 
King,  of  his  people.  Their  Prophet  to  reveal  the  will 
of  God  respecting  them  ;  their  Priest  to  expiate  their 
guilt  and  intercede  for  them ;  their  King  to  govern 
and  protect  them ;  that  in  Him  these  offices  before 
divided  among  many  individuals  and  generations, 
were  to  meet  and  for  the  first  time  to  be  fully  realized  ; 
all  which  is  really  expressed  by  calling  him  the  Christ 
or  the  Messias. 

These  are  not  scholastic  subtleties  or  technical  dis- 
tinctions, as  some  would  fain  persuade  you  ;  they  are 
real,  real — essential  to  a  clear  and  full  view  of  the 
office  and  person  of  the  great  deliverer ;  the  source 
and  subject  of  the  gospel,  who  was  called  Jesus  as  the 
Saviour  of  his  people ;  and  Christ  as  the  Prophet, 
Priest,  and  King  forever. 

(3.)  But  who  is  sufficient  for  these  things,  or  who 


20  SEKMONS. 

is  equal  to  tlie  great  work  shadowed  forth  bj  these 
signs,  and  more  than  royal  titles.  If  the  highest 
earthly  wisdom  is  evinced  in  separating  legal  and  ju- 
dicial functions  ;  in  dividing  among  many  what  would 
too  severely  task  the  powers  and  try  the  integrity  of 
one,  what  human  subject  can  combine  in  his  own 
person,  all  that  is  expressed  by  these  names.  It  is 
clearly  impossible.  Their  very  application  excludes 
the  thought  of  mere  humanity.  The  necessity  of  a 
divine  person  to  assume  this  trust  would  be  apparent, 
from  the  nature  of  the  trust  itself,  even  if  it  were  not 
expressly  added,  that  this  gospel  is  the  gospel  of  the 
Son  of  God,  not  in  the  attenuated  sense  which  heresy 
would  put  upon  it,  but  in  that  which  the  unbelieving 
Jews  themselves  attached  to  the  expressions  when  they 
charged  our  Lord  with  blasphemy,  for  calling  God 
his  father,  and  thus  making  himself  equal  with  God. 
The  Son  of  God,  not  merely  as  a  creation,  or  an  object 
of  affection,  or  a  subject  of  adoption ;  but  as  a  par- 
taker of  his  nature,  one  with  him  in  essence,  the  same 
in  substance,  equal  in  power  and  glory.  This  is  the 
last  particular  included  in  the  description  of  the  gos- 
pel. It  is  good  news,  from  God  to  man,  of  deliver- 
ance from  suffering  and  sin ;  the  good  news  of  a 
Saviour,  of  a  prophet,  of  a  priest,  and  of  a  king,  not 
human  but  divine,  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son 
of  God. 

II.  Having  thus  seen  what  the  gospel  is,  and 
whose  it  is,  it  remains  to  consider  still  more  briefly 
its  beginning,  under  the  two  distinct  questions  : 

1.  Where  did  it  bemn  of  old  ? 


MARK  1,  1.  21 

2.  Where  does  it  begin  now  ? 

In  answer  to  tlie  first  of  these  inqniries,  I  remark : 

(1.)  That  the  gospel  as  a  message  of  salvation,  may 
""db  said  to  have  begun  in  the  eternal  counsel  of  the 
divine  will ;  in  the  eternal  purpose  of  the  God  who 
sent  it.  There  is  no  more  injurious  mistake  than  that 
of  looking  on  the  gospel  as  a  sort  of  afterthought,  or 
series  of  experiments  intended  to  make  good  the  fail- 
ure of  another  method  of  salvation,  and  continually 
modified  to  meet  emergencies  as  they  arose.  Known 
unto  God  are  all  his  works  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world,  and  though  it  may  not  be  expedient  to  expa- 
tiate too  freely  in  the  bewildering  mazes  of  this  great 
truth,  and  especially  to  speculate  upon  it  as  a  mere 
abstraction,  aj)art  from  its  connection  with  human 
duty,  character,  and  destiny,  we  neither  may  nor  can 
displace  it  as  the  deep  and  adamantine  basis,  upon 
which  alone  our  hopes  are  founded.  The  Gospel  of 
Christ  could  never  terminate  in  our  salvation,  if  it 
had  not  first  begun  in  God's  decree  ;  let  this  then  lie 
at  the  foundation,  and  from  this  let  us  ascend  to  ex- 
plore the  superstructure,  and  inquire  what  was  the 
beginning  of  the  gospel  as  a  part  of  human  history, 
and  a  phase  of  man's  experience. 

(2.)  I  remark,  ^hcn,  in  the  next  place,  that  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Cln-ist,  was  not  in  the 
New  Testament,  but  in  tlie  Old  ;  it  began  in  the  sim- 
ple first  promise  to  our  fallen  parents  ;  in  their  sacrifi- 
cial offerings  ;  in  the  bleeding  lambs  of  Abel's  altar  ; 
in  the  simple  faitli  and  worship  of  the  Patriarclis. 
It  began  afresh  in  the  Mosaic  legislation,  in  the  cere- 
monial law,  with  its  passover  and  pentecost,  and  great 


22  SERMONS. 

day  of  atonement ;  -witli  its  sabbatlis  and  its  jubilees, 
its  priests  and  levites,  its  animal  and  vegetable  oifer- 
ings,  its  smoking  altar  and  its  shed  blood.  All  these 
were  worse  than  useless,  worthless  to  man  and  insulting 
to  God,  except  so  far  as  they  were  typifying  and  sym- 
bolizing the  "  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
the  Son  of  God." 

Once  more  it  may  be  said  to  have  begun  in  tlie 
predictions  of  the  prophets,  who  declared  in  words,  as 
the  legal  service  did  in  acts,  the  coming  Saviour,  and 
not  only  foretold,  but  exhibited  to  all  believers,  "  the 
beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of 
God." 

(3.)  Passing  over  the  long  interval  between  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  and  coming  nearer  to  the  ac- 
tual appearance  of  the  promised  Saviour,  his  gospel 
may  be  said  to  have  had  a  new  beginning  in  the  pre- 
paratory ministry  of  John  the  Baptist.  If  not  ex- 
pressed, it  is  at  least  implied  and  necessarily  indi- 
cated in  Mark's  introductory  expression,  that  John 
the  Baptist's  preaching  in  the  wilderness  the  baptism 
of  repentance,  with  a  view  to  the  remission  of  sins,  was 
the  beginning  of  the  gospel ;  its  immediate  precursor, 
the  appointed  preparation  for  its  full  disclosure,  so  that 
John's  instructions  and  his  baptisms  derived  all  their 
worth  and  meaning  from  the  fact  that  in  the  verse 
explained,  they  were  the  actual  beginning  of  the  Gos- 
pel of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God.  We  find  accord- 
ingly, that  when  John's  ministry  was  closed,  and  that 
of  Christ  himself  succeeded,  it  was  at  first  a  mere  con- 
tinuation of  John's  preaching,  that  the  burden  of 
both  cries  was,  Repent,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven 


MARK  1,  :.  23 

is  at  hand !  From  this  beginning,  and  from  those 
ah'eady  mentioned  lying  fm-ther  back  in  all  the 
prophecies,  the  ceremonies  of  the  law,  the  religion  of 
the  patriarchs,  and  the  decrees  of  God,  fi'om  these 
beginnings,  the  gospel  in  the  hands  and  in  the  mouth 
of  Him  who  was  at  once  its  author,  and  its  subject, 
and  its  finisher,  was  developed  by  degrees — in  his 
divine  instructions,  in  his  miracles  of  mercy,  in  his 
perfect  example,  but  above  all  in  his  faultless  obedi- 
ence and  atoning  passion,  in  his  crucifixion,  resur- 
rection, and  ascension,  in  his  session  at  the  right  hand 
of  God,  in  the  effusion  of  his  Spirit,  the  erection  of  his 
church,  the  diftusion  of  his  doctrines,  and  the  con- 
quest of  the  world  ;  that  system  whose  l)eginnings  we 
have  traced,  became  the  glorious  gospel  of  tlic  grace 
of  God,  even  the  gospel  of  your  salvation. 

2.  Tills  reference  to  the  bearing  of  the  gospel 
upon  human  destiny,  brings  us  to  the  last  remaining 
question  suggested  by  the  text,  to  Avhich  the  answer 
must  be  still  more  brief  than  to  the  one  before  it ; 
serving  rather  as  a  practical  improvement  than  a  fur- 
ther explanation  of  the  subject. 

Wkei'e  does  this  gosjpel  hegin  noio  ?  There  is  a 
sense  in  which  this  question  would  be  senseless  and 
irrelevant.  The  foundation  is  already  laid,  and  neither 
need  nor  can  be  laid  again.  The  sacrifice  for  sin  has 
been  already  ofiered  for  all,  and  if  that  be  rejected, 
there  remaineth  no  more  sacrifice  for  sin,  but  a  fear- 
ful looking  for  of  judgment  and  fiery  indignation, 
which  shall  destroy  the  adversary.  It  were  worse 
than  vain,  my  hearers,  to  seek  any  other  gospel  than 


24  SERMONS. 

that  wliicli  has  begun  ah*eadj  iu  the  divine  decrees, 
in  the  law,  in  the  prophets,  in  the  preaching  of  John, 
and  in  the  saving  work  of  Christ  himself.  There  are 
other  gospels,  but  of  such,  and  of  such  as  preach 
them,  though  it  were  an  angel  from  heaven,  Paul  has 
said,  let  him  be  anathema. 

But  although  tlie  gospel  can,  in  this  view,  have  no 
more  beginnings,  yet  in  the  subjective  sense  of  some- 
thing which  may  be  embraced  in  the  personal  experi- 
ence, and  must  be  so  embraced  to  secure  salvation, 
we  may  ask  in  conclusion,  as  we  asked  before,  Where 
does  the  gospel  hegin  now  f  Without  repeating  what 
has  been  already  said  as  to  its  ultimate  source  and 
indispensable  foundation,  I  may  say, 

(1).  That  it  begins  for  the  most  part  in  religious 
education  ;  in  that  simple  teaching  at  paternal  knees 
and  on  maternal  bosoms,  which  in  our  happy,  highly 
favored  times,  supplies  the  place  of  those  remote  and 
long  protracted  means  by  which  the  world  was  pre- 
pared of  old  for  the  appearance  of  a  Saviour.  How 
many  children  of  the  church  forget,  how  many  pious 
parents  insufficiently  consider,  that  these  lispings  of 
religious  truth  to  infant  ears,  which  may  even  seem  to 
be  to  themselves  superfluous,  may  be  intended  by 
divine  grace  and  realized  by  those,  who  scarcely  can 
be  said  to  hear  them,  as  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God. 

(2).  I  say  intended  by  divine  grace,  for  I  need  not 
add  that  even  these  distilling  dew-drops  of  infantile 
training  can  avail  nothing  without  superhuman  in- 
fluence, without  the  moving  of  the  spirit  and  the 
waters  :  sometimes  in   immediate   succession  to  the 


MARK  1,  1.  25 

early  training  without  any  interval  of  vice  or  unbelief ; 
sometimes  after  peaceful  interruptions,  during  wliicli 
tlie  seed  sown  seems  to  liave  long  perished  ;  but  no, 
sometimes  when  least  expected,  a  new  life  is  infused 
into  the  dead  mass  of  apparently  unprofitable  knowl- 
edge, the  seed  long  buried  shows  itself,  the  tears  of 
the  departed  glisten  still  about  the  leaves  of  the  plant, 
and  under  heavenly  culture  and  divine  direction  it 
spi-ings  up,  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  and  then  the 
full  com  in  the  ear.  To  that  man  the  gospel  has  a 
new  beginning,  as  in  one  sense  the  original  instruc- 
tions of  his  childhood,  so  in  another  the  first  move- 
ment of  divine  power  on  his  heart  and  conscience,  is 
to  him  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
the  Son  of  God. 

(3.)  Lastly,  in  addition  to  these  doctrines  and  gra- 
cious beginnings,  there  are  what  may  be  called  provi- 
dential recommencements  of  the  gospel,  both  to  com- 
munities and  to  individuals.  I  need  not  specify  under 
the  latter  head,  seasons  of  afiliction,  or  under  the  for- 
mer, seasons  of  revival.  These  I  must  leave  with  a 
bare  suggestion  to  your  private  meditations.  I  will  only 
nint  in  closing  the  subject,  that  to  a  whole  church, 
even  trivial  incidents  or  epochs  in  their  history,  mny 
mark  such  a  revival  of  the  gospel  in  its  power  as  1 
have  suggested.  A  change  of  local  situation,  or  of 
pastors,  the  return  of  one  after  a  temporary  absence, 
nay,  the  very  reassembling  of  the  people  after  periodi- 
cal dispersion,  though  entirely  insufiicient  of  them- 
selves, may,  imder  the  divine  direction,  be  the  signal 
for  new  zeal  upon  the  part  of  true  believers,  and  for 
new  attention  in  the  unconverted,  and  to  both,  in  an 

VOL.  I. — 2 


25  SERMCTNS. 

important  sense  of  the  expression,  a  beginning  of  tlie 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God.  That  I  may 
not  close  without  a  word  of  application  to  the  individ- 
ual as  well  as  the  collective  audience,  let  me  say  to 
you,  my  friend,  who  may  be  here  to  day  apparently  by 
accident,  or  if  a  stated  worshipper  in  this  place,  yet  a 
stranger  to  the  covenants  of  promise,  that  you  have 
only  to  accept  of  that  which  is  so  freely  offered ;  you 
have  only  to  repent  and  to  believe  and  to  throw  your- 
self into  the  outstretched  arms  of  mercy  ;  you  have 
only  to  consent  to  be  made  holy  and  happy  in  the 
way  of  your  own  choosing,  and  this  favored  hour, 
this  otherwise  imperfect  service,  shall  be  remembered 
by  you  to  eternal  ages,  as  having  been  to  your  soul, 
through  divine  grace,  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God. 


n. 

Matthkw  2,  2. — Where  is  be  tbat  is  born  king  of  tbe  rfews  ? 

When  these  words  were  originally  uttered,  the 
Jews,  tliough  still  a  nation  in  the  popular  sense — i.  c, 
not  only  a  people  but  a  state,  not  only  a  distinct 
race  but  a  body  politic — had  for  centuries  had  no 
king  of  their  own  royal  lineage.  The  throne  of  David 
was  still  empty  and  awaiting  his  successor.  He  who 
did  reign  over  them  was  regarded  by  them  as  an  alien 
in  blood  and  an  apostate  in  religion.  And  even  he 
was  the  tributary  vassal  of  a  foreign  state,  the  last 
of  the  great  powers  to  which  the  Jews  had  been  suc- 
cessively subjected.  The  first  days  of  their  monarchy 
were  in  all  respects  its  best  days.  It  had  scarcely 
surmounted  the  horizon  when  it  reached  its  zenith. 
Tlie  best  and  greatest  of  the  theocratic  kings  was 
David.  Even  under  Solomon  the  symptoms  of  de- 
cline began  to  show  themselves.  He  was  scarcely 
dead  before  the  great  schism  took  away  a  large  part 
of  his  kingdom.  The  apostate  monarchy  of  Israel 
waxed  worse  and  worse,  and  fell  at  last  before  the 
power  of  Assyria.  Its  people  were  carried  into  exile, 
and  their  place  supplied  by  heathen  settlers.  The 
captives  themselves  vanish  all  at  once  from  history. 


28  SERMONS. 

and  are  still  sought  after  by  tlie  name  of  the  Lost 
Tribes.  The  kingdom  of  Judah  lasted  longer,  but 
the  progress  of  decay  was  constant.  ISTow  and  then  a 
king  arose,  who  seemed  to  raise  them  for  a  time,  bnt 
it  was  only  to  sink  deeper  by  reaction  and  collapse. 
The  Babylonian  empire  had  supplanted  the  Assyrian 
and  become  the  mistress  of  western  Asia.  Before  the 
host  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  Judah  fell  as  Ephraim  had 
fallen  long  before.  The  holy  city  was  disman- 
tled, and  the  temple  burnt  with  tire.  The  king 
and  the  best  part  of  the  people  went  into  captivity. 
From  this  they  were  delivered  by  the  fall  of  Babylon 
and  the  rise  of  the  Persian  power  on  its  ruins.  Cjtus 
the  Great  favoured  and  restored  the  Jewish  exiles. 
The  temple  was  rebuilt  in  troublous  times.  But  the 
renovated  commonwealth  was  weak  and  insignificant, 
compared  with  the  old  kingdom,  even  in  its  latter 
days ;  much  more  when  compared  with  its  pristine 
glory  under  Solomon  and  David.  Tlic  colony  could 
only  exist  by  the  protection  of  foreign  powers.  It 
passed  under  the  successive  domination  of  the  empires 
which  so  rapidly  supplanted  one  another  in  the  inter- 
val betwen  the  Old  and  Xew  Testaments.  First 
the  Persians,  then  the  Macedonians,  then  the  Greek 
kings  of  Egypt  and  Syria.  The  oppressions  of  the  latter 
roused  the  old  Jewish  spirit  and  led  to  the  erection 
of  a  native  monarchy.  The  Maccabees,  or  Hasmonean 
Princes,  united  in  themselves  the  kingly  and  the 
priestly  office.  For  several  generations  they  main- 
tained the  independence  of  the  Jewish  state,  even 
against  formidable  foes.  But  they  were  not  the 
legitimate  successors  of  David ;  they  were  not  even 


MATTHEW  2,  2.  29 

children  of  Judali,  but  of  Levi.     At  length  a  family 
dispute  was  referred  to  foreign  arbitration. 

Tlie  Eoman  Empire  in  the  meantime  had  become 
the  ruling  power  of  the  world.  Syria  and  Eygpt 
were  already  under  its  dominion.  Its  agents  eagerly 
embraced  the  opportunity  of  gaining  foothold  in  the 
land  of  Israel.  Under  the  pretext  of  pacification, 
Pompey  the  Great  took  possession  of  Jerusalem  and 
about  half  a  century  before  the  language  of  the  text 
was  uttered,  the  Roman  eagles  were  conspicuously 
planted  upon  Zion  and  Moriah.  With  their  usual 
wise  policy,  the  conquerors  left  with  the  conquered 
the  appearance  of  self-government.  Their  religious 
institutions  remained  undisturbed.  An  Idumean  fam- 
ily, personally  favoured  by  Augustus,  was  exalted  by 
the  Senate  to  the  royal  dignity.  Tlie  first  that  took 
the  title  was  "  Herod  the  king,  in  whose  days  wise 
men  from  the  east  came  to  Jerusalem,  saying,  "Where 
is  he  that  is  born  king  of  the  Jews  ?  "  At  this  ques- 
tion, we  are  told  the  king  was  troubled,  and  all  Jeru- 
salem agitated  with  him.  But  it  was  not  the  agita- 
tion of  mere  wonder.  Tlie  very  effect  produced  shows 
that  a  corresponding  expectation  was  already  in 
existence.  The  Jews  still  held  fast  to  their  ancient 
Scriptures,  though  with  many  traditions.  These  taught 
them  to  expect  the  restoration  of  the  throne  of  David. 
From  them,  or  from  an  old  collateral  tradition,  other 
nations  were  now  looking  to  Judea  as  the  scene  of 
great  events.  Tlie  world  was  agitated  by  a  vague 
foreboding.  War  for  a  time  had  ceased  throughout 
the  Roman  Empire.  Men  had  leisure  to  attend  to 
predictions  and  prognostics.     The  Jews  believed  that 


30  SEEMONS. 

the  Star  foretold  by  Balaam  was  about  to  come  out 
of  Jacob.  Their  heathen  neighbors  shared  in  the 
belief  of  and  expectation  of  strange  lieavenly 
phenomena  aimonncing  the  approach  of  great  catas- 
trophes and  the  rise  of  some  extraordinary  personage. 
At  this  critical  juncture  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
when  Koman  power  and  Greek  civilization  had 
attained  then*  height  in  the  Augustine  age,  when 
heathen  religion  and  philosophy  had  both  reached 
the  period  of  decrepitude  and  men  began  to  feel  the 
need  of  better  consolation,  when  the  schools  and  the 
oracles  alike  were  dumb  ;  when  the  heathen  were  look- 
ing for  they  knew  not  what,  and  the  Jews  expecting  a 
son  of  David  to  restore  their  ancient  monarch}^ ;  at 
this  very  crisis  wise  men  from  the  east :  the  cradle  of 
science  and  the  home  of  occult  superstition,  came  to 
Jerusalem,  saying,  "  Where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of 
the  Jews  ? 

They  did  not  ask  for  the  actual  sovereign  of  the 
Jews.  It  was  to  him  that  they  addressed  the  question. 
But  they  ask  for  the  hereditary  rightful  king,  not  one 
to  be  born,  but  as  born  already.  J^o  wonder  that 
,  the  Edomite  who  held  possession  of  the  throne  by  the 
gi'ace  of  a  heathen  sovereign,  was  alarmed.  ]^o  wonder 
that  his  people  were  excited,  when  they  heard  these 
strangers  asking  :  ^'  Where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of 
the  Jews  ?  for  we  have  seen  his  star  in  the  east,  and 
have  come  to  worship  him."  The  cpestion  was  not 
one  of  local  or  temporary  interest.  It  was  to  give 
complexion  to  the  history  of  all  after  ages.  It  has 
received  or  been  susceptible  of  various  answers,  as 
the  state  of  things  has  gradually  changed.     To  some 


MATTHEW  2,  2.  31 

of  these  I  now  ask  your  attentior,  as  a  proof  tliat 
the  demand  is  still  u  stirring  one,  '*  Where  is  he  that 
is  born  king  of  the  Jews  ?  " 

When  the  question  was  originally  asked,  the 
answer  might  have  been,  Li  Bethlehem  of  Judah,  in  a 
stable,  in  a  manger.  Yes,  the  hereditary  king  of 
Israel,  he  who  was  to  sit  upon  the  throne  both  by 
divine  and  hnman  right,  was  born  in  poverty,  and  to 
the  eyes  of  men  in  shame.  This  was  surprising  in 
itself,  but  it  was  more — it  was  the  first  in  a  long  series 
of  surprises,  of  enigmas,  of  apparent  contradictions. 
He  that  was  born  king  of  the  Jews  not  only  passed 
through  all  the  pains  of  infancy  and  childhood, 
in  an  humble  station,  but  in  mature  age  had  not 
where  to  lay  his  head.  Dependent  on  the  charity  of 
friends,  despised  and  rejected  by  his  enemies.  These 
privations  and  these  sufferings  become  darker  and 
more  complex  as  we  trace  his  history,  until  at  last, 
betrayed  by  one  disciple,  denied  by  another,  and  for- 
saken by  the  rest,  we  seem  to  lose  sight  of  him  amidst 
a  cloud  th]-ough  which  the  spears  of  Roman  soldiers 
and  the  TJrim  and  Thummim  on  the  High  Priest's 
breast  are  seen  flashing  in  unwonted  combination. 
From  this  scene  of  condemnation  and  disgrace  we 
turn  away,  saying,  "  Where,  then,  is  he  that  is  born 
king  of  the  Jews  ?  " 

When  the  cloud  has  once  more  been  dispelled,  this 
question  may  receive  another  answer.  For  on  yonder 
hill,  without  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  three  crosses  are 
erected.  On  these  crosses  three  living  sufferers  are 
even  now  suspended.  Two  of  them  are  oi'dinary  con- 
victs,  malefactors. — But  over  the  head  of  him  sus- 


32  SERMONS. 

pended  in  tlie  inidst  there  is  a  superscription.  The 
characters  are  legible  enough,  and  that  all  who  pass 
by  may  comprehend  them,  they  are  written  in  the 
three  sacred  languages  of  earth — in  Greek,  in  Hebrew, 
and  in  Latin.  Draw  near  and  decipher  them.  Is  it  a 
record  of  some  common-place  iniquity,  on  whicn 
society  has  wreaked  its  vengeance  ?  No,  the  words 
are  strange  and  seemingly  misplaced — as  if  some  wan- 
ton hand  had  torn  them  from  the  walls  of  a  palace,  or 
the  canopy  of  a  throne,  and  in  mockeiy,  transferred 
them  to  this  scene  of  execution,  this  Calvary,  this  Gol 
gotha,  this  place  of  a  skull — "  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  king 
of  the  Jews  !  "  Yes,  the  very  words ! — In  vain  did  the 
Jews  plead  for  a  change  of  form — Eome,  the  mis- 
tress of  the  world,  through  the  hand  of  her  procu- 
rator, has  become  witness  to  the  truth,  and  the  testi- 
mony cannot  be  recalled.  "  What  I  have  written  I 
have  written  !  "  Read,  then,  above  the  head  of  that 
expiring  sufferer,  the  answer  to  the  question — "  "Where 
is  he  that  is  born  king  of  the  Jews  ?  " — ^There, 
there,  upon  that  cross. 

In  this  case  too,  the  answer  does  but  touch  one 
link  in  a  long  chain  of  paradoxical  events,  disappoint- 
ing, blasting,  the  long-cherished  hopes  of  Israel.  In- 
stead of  a  conqueror  presenting  them  a  sufferer, 
accused,  condemned,  and  put  to  death  in  due  course 
of  law.  Even  his  followers  and  friends  could  say,  in 
deep  despondency  :  "  We  trusted  that  it  had  been  he 
which  should  have  redeemed  Israel."  Even  they  are 
slow  of  heart  to  learn,  believe,  and  understand  that 
this  redemption  must  be  purchased  by  the  sacrifice 
of  life — that  Messiah  must  suffer  these  things  before 


MATTHEW  2,  2.  33 

lie  could  enter  into  Ms  glory.  Yes,  the  whole  doctrme 
of  atonement  and  salvation  by  the  death  of  the 
incarnate  Son  of  God  is  summed  np  and  concentrated 
in  the  answer  given  at  this  awful  moment  on  the  top 
of  Calvary,  to  the  question — "Where  is  he  that  is 
born  king  of  the  Jews  ?  " 

But  Calvary  is  not  the  only  height  about  Jeru- 
salem, There  is  another  on  the  east  called  Olivet— 
the  Mount  of  Olives.  On  the  acclivity  of  that  hill 
what  do  you  discern  ? — Eleven  men  gazing  at  the  sky 
— A  moment  ago  and  there  was  another  with  them, 
and  they  might  have  been  heard  anxiously  inquiring 
of  him — "  Wilt  thou  at  this  time  restore  again  the 
kingdom  to  Israel  ?  "  He  has  •  scarcely  spoken  in 
reply,  when  he  is  taken  up  ;  a  cloud  receives  him  out 
of  their  sight.  At  first  perhaps  they  doubt  the  tes- 
timony of  their  senses ;  then  indulge  the  hope 
that  he  has  only  vanished  for  a  moment — ^but  they 
are  soon  undeceived — and  if  the  question  were  now 
put  to  them  ;  "  Where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of 
the  Jews  ?  "  they  would  with  one  accord  point  up- 
wards, and  reply,  "  He  is  in  heaven  !  "  Yes,  he  who 
once  lay  in  the  manger  at  Bethlehem,  and  lately  hung 
upon  the  cross  on  Calvary,  is  now  in  heaven,  beyond 
the  reach  of  persecution  and  privation  ;  and  the  same 
is  still  true.  Even  the  youngest  children  who  are 
taught  the  name  of  Christ,  know  well  that  he  is  not 
here  now,  as  he  was  here  of  old — they  know  too,  that 
he  is  in  heaven.  Tliey  know  not,  and  the  wisest  of  us 
know  not,  where,  or  what  heaven  is  ;  but  we  Icnow 
that  wherever  it  is,  he  is  there,  and  that  where  he 
is,  there  is  heaven.     And  thither  our  thoughts  natu 

VOL.  I.— 2^- 


34  SERMONS. 

rail  J  turn  at  the    question — '"  "Where   is  he   th^.t  is 
born  king  of  the  Jews  ?  " 

This  might  seem  to  shnt  the  door  npon  all  lurther 
mquirj,  but  it  does  not.  Men  mav  think,  as  the  eleven 
thonsrht  at  first,  that  he  is  no"sv  beyond  our  reach, 
and  we  beyond  his ;  but,  like  them,  vre  may  be  mis- 
taken. ISTo,  before  he  left  them  he  commanded  them 
to  wait  for  the  promise  of  the  Father,  and  the  baptism 
of  the  Spirit,  and  when  that  had  been  received,  to  go 
rtS  witnesses  of  him  not  only  through  Judea  and  Sama- 
ria, but  to  the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth  ;  and  they 
were  not  to  go  alone — for  he  was  to  go  with  them, 
and  remain  with  them — "  Lo  I  am  with  you  alway, 
even  unto  the  end  of  the  world."  In  some  sense,  then, 
he  is  on  earth — he  is  here — if  we  are  indeed  gathered 
in  his  name.  "  For  where  two  or  three  are  gathered 
in  my  name,  there  am  I  present  in  the  midst  of  them." 
Here  then  is  still  another  answer  to  the  question  : 
"  Where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of  the  Jews  ? " 
He  is  in  heaven,  but  he  is  also  upon  earth  ;  not 
visibly,  yet  really — and  one  day  he  will  reappear, 
and  then  another  answer  still — or  the  same,  but  in  a 
new  sense,  or  at  least  with  a  new  emphasis,  must  be 
returned. 

For  look  again  upon  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  be- 
hold the  eleven  gazing  steadfastly  toward  hea-veii. 
Who  are  these  that  stand  beside  them,  clothed  in 
white  apparel  ?  and  in  what  terms  do  they  accost 
them  ?  "  Men  of  Galilee,  why  stand  ye  gaziiig 
up  to  heaven  ?  This  same  Jesus  which  is  taken  from 
you,  shall  so  come  in  like  manner  as  ye  have  seen 
him  go  into  heaven."     And  is  this  not  still  true  ? 


MATTHEW  2,  2.  35 

Did  liis  coming  at  the  downfall  of  Jerusalem  exhaust 
this  precious  promise  ?  Is  it  not  one  of  the  great  doc- 
trines that  the  -  Church  through  all  vicissitudes,  has 
held  fast  as  a  part  of  her  unalienable  heritage  that 
Christ  shall  come  again  not  in  spirit,  but  in  person, 
to  the  eye  of  sense  as  well  as  that  of  faith.  However 
we  may  differ  as  to  the  time  of  this  epiphany,  we  all 
believe  tliat  it  will  certainly  take  place,  and  that  when 
we  are  asked,  "  "Where  is  he  that  is  born  l^ing  of 
the  Jews  ? "  we  shall  no  longer  be  obliged  to  point  to 
a  far  distant  heaven,  or  to  look  fearfully  around  us 
as  if  seeing  one  who  is  invisible — but  with  open  face 
beholding  the  bright  cloud  as  it  descends,  and  him 
wlio  sits  enthroned  upon  it,  we  shall  see  amidst  the 
halo  that  surrounds  his  head,  in  living  characters  of 
light,  the  same  inscription  that  the  hand  of  Pilate  once 
appended  to  the  cross,  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  king  of 
the  Jews." — For  when  he  comes  he  shall  come  in 
glory — the  cloudy  throne  will  be  only  a  figure  of  that 
throne  which  he  already  occupies.  His  seat  at  the  right 
hand  of  his  father.  All  power  in  heaven  and  earth  is 
already  committed  to  him.  We  are  assured  not 
only  that  he  is  in  safety,  but  that  he  is  in  posses- 
sion, and  in  the  active  exercise  of  power,  of  all 
power,  of  infinite,  abnighty  power.  He  who  was 
humbled,  is  now  exalted.  He  who  lay  in  the  manger, 
and  hung  upon  the  cross,  and  ascended  from  Olivet, 
and  is  to  come  to  judge  the  world  at  the  last  day,  is 
even  now  at  the  helm,  guiding  the  complicated  move- 
ments of  God's  providential  government.  Yes,  he  is 
even  now  upon  the  throne  of  the  universe,  and  to  that 
throne  we  may  look  up  and  to  it  dhect  the  eve  cf 


36  .   SERMONS. 

others   when   they  ask,  whether  as  friends   cr  foes, 
"  "Where  is  he  that  is  bom  king  of  the  Jews  ?  " 

This  question  therefore,  is  of  interest,  not  merely  in 
rehxtion  to  the  place  of  Christ's  abode  at  any  period 
of  his  history,  but  also  in  relation  to  his  dignity  and 
office.  Tlie  question.  Where  is  he?  really  means, 
"What  is  he  ?  Where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of  the 
Jews  ?  What  part  does  he  now  fill  ?  In  what  char- 
acter, imder  what  aspect,  is  he  now  revealed  to  us  ? 
In  this,  as  well  as  in  the  local  sense,  we  may  ask, 
Where  is  he  ?  We  have  seen  already,  in  reply  to  this 
interrogation,  that  he  is  upon  the  throne  of  universal 
ecumenical  dominion.  But  this  thronC,  though  real 
and  exalted,  is  invisible.  Hereafter,  we  shall  see  it, 
but  as  yet  we  see  it  not.  Yet  even  now,  and  even 
upon  earth,  his  throne  is  standing.  By  a  strange 
transmutation,  he  who  was  born  king  of  the  Jews  is 
now  king  of  the  Christians.  He  came  to  his  own,  and 
his  own  received  him  not.  The  Jews  as  a  race, 
rejected  him.  They  still  reject  him.  After  eighteen 
hundred  years,  the  language  of  their  hearts,  and  lips, 
and  lives,  is  still  the  same  that  Christ,  in  one  of  his 
parables,  puts  into  the  mouths  of  their  fathers : 
"  We  will  not  have  this  man  to  reign  over  us."  Even 
at  the  time,  and  to  his  face,  they  rejected  his  preten- 
sions, crying,  "  We  have  no  king  but  Caesar."  Even 
that  they  soon  lost.  Tlie  Csesar  whom  they  chose 
to  be  their  king  was  their  destroyer.  The  successor 
of  Caesar  levelled  Jerusalem  with  the  earth,  threw 
down  its  walls,  and  tried  to  obliterate  its  very 
name,  while  no  Jew  was  permitted  even  to  tread  the 
soil.     In  course  of   time,  the  throne  of  the  Caesars 


.     MATTHEW  2,  2.  $f 

crumbled.  The  Eternal  City  lost  its  secular  suprem- 
acy. But  the  Jews  continued,  and  do  still  continue 
aliens  to  the  land  of  promise.  They  have  sought  the 
favor  of  Mohammedans,  of  Christians,  and  of  hea- 
then, and,  in  turn  have  enjoyed  each.  But  all  have 
turned  to  be  their  enemies.  Even  now,  when  a  better 
spirit  has  arisen  with  respect  to  them,  they  are 
without  a  country,  without  a  government,  without 
political  or  national  existence.  Li  them  the  prophecy 
has  indeed  been  verified.  They  have  continued 
"  many  days  without  a  king,  and  without  a  home, 
and  without  a  sacrifice."  Where  then  is  he  that  was 
born  king  of  the  Jews  ?  Has  he  been  thrust  out  of 
his  inheritance  ?  Has  the  promise  to  David  of  per- 
petual succession  been  completely  nullified  ?  By  no 
means  !  He  who  was  to  come  has  come  and  been 
enthroned,  and  is  at  this  moment  reigning.  He 
reigns  not  only  in  heaven,  but  on  earth.  He  reigns 
over  an  organized  and  constituted  kingdom.  He 
reigns  over  the  Israel  of  God.  The  Christian  Church 
is  heir  to  the  prerogatives  of  ancient  Israel.  The 
two  bodies  arc  morally  identical.  It  was  the  remnant 
according  to  the  election  of  grace,  that  formed  the 
germ  of  the  new  organization.  The  new  edifice  was 
reared  upon  the  old  foundation.  It  was  only  the  car- 
nal Israel,  the  nation  as  a  nation,  that  rejected  Christ. 
Over  them  as  Jews  he  is  not  reigning.  But  he  is  not 
a  Jew  that  is  one  outwardly.  All  are  not  Israel  that 
are  of  Israel.  They  may  still  claim  to  be  the  chosen 
people.  But  this  is  "  the  blasphemy  of  them  which 
say  that  they  are  Jews  and  are  not,  but  the  syna- 
gogue of  Satan."     "  AYe  are  the  cii'cumcision,  which 


38  SERMONS. 

worship  God  in  the  Spirit,  and  rejoice  in  Christ  Jesus, 
and  have  no  confidence  in  the  flesh.  Over  snch  Christ 
does  reign,  and  in  reigning  over  snch  he  is  really  and 
truly,  in  the  highest  sense,  and  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  prophecies  and  promises  respecting  him,  "  King 
of  the  Jews."  He  reigns  in  the  heart  of  every  indi- 
vidual believer.  He  reigns  in  the  church  as  a  col- 
lective body.  He  is  theoretically  acknowledged  as 
the  head,  even  by  many  who  in  words  deny  him. 
By  every  pure  church,  and  by  every  sincere  Chris- 
tian, he  is  really  enthroned  and  crowned,  acknowl- 
edged and  obeyed.  He  who  was  born  king  of  the 
Jews,  has  become  the  king  of  the  Christians,  without 
any  change  of  character  or  office,  without  any  failure 
in  the  plan  or  the  prediction.  We  have  only  to 
point  to  the  throne  of  the  Church  and  to  the  crown 
of  Christendom,  when  any  ask,  in  doubt  or  scorn, 
"  Where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of  the  Jews  ?  " 

This  kingdom,  it  is  true,  is  not  yet  coextensive 
with  the  earth,  but  it  shall  be.  It  is  growing,  and  is 
vet  to  grow.  The  kingdoms  of  the  earth  are  to  be- 
come the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord,  and  of  his  Christ. 
The  mountain  of  the  Lord's  house  is  to  be  established 
above  every  other,  and  all  nations  are  to  flow  unto 
it.  The  stone  cut  without  hands  from  -the  mountain 
is  to  fill  the  earth.  The  watchword  of  its  progress  is 
Overturn,  overturn,  overturn^  until  he  shall  come, 
whose  right  it  is  to  reign.  However  the  great  men 
and  the  wise  men  of  the  world  may  be  affected  by  this 
revolution,  it  shall  come  to  pass.  They  may  despise 
the  day  of  small  beginnings — but  the  Lime  is  coming 
and  perhaps  at  hand,  when  the  providence,  if  not  the 


MATTHEW  2,  2.  39 

voice  of  God  sliall  say  to  them,  Behold,  ye  despiserSj 
and  wonder,  and  perish — they  may  imagine  that  by 
constitutions,  and  by  legislative  acts,  or  by  the  reorgan- 
ization of  society,  they  have  secured  themselves  from 
all  intrusion  upon  Christ's  part. — But  before  they  are 
aware,  his  hand  may  be  upon  them,  and  his  arrows 
sharp  in  the  hearts  of  the  king's  enemies.  Resistance 
and  revolt  will  be  forever  unavailing.  The  heathen 
may  still  rage  and  the  nations  imagine  a  vain  thing — 
the  kings  of  the  earth  may  set  themselves,  and  rulers 
take  counsel  together  against  the  Lord  and  his 
anointed.  They  may  still  say  as  in  ages  past  they 
have  said,  Let  us  break  their  bands  asunder,  and  cast 
their  cords  from  us.  He  that  sitteth  in  the  heavens 
shall  laugh.  The  Lord  shall  have  them  in  derision. 
Then  shall  he  speak  to  them  in  his  anger,  and  con- 
found them  in  his  hot  displeasure.  He  has  already 
set  his  king  upon  his  holy  hill  of  Zion.  He  will 
give  him  the  heathen  for  his  heritage,  and  the  utter- 
most parts  of  the  earth  for  his  possession.  If  rebel- 
lious he  will  rule  them  with  a  rod  of  iron,  he  will 
break  them  in  pieces  as  a  potters  vessel.  Let  kings 
then  learn  wisdom,  let  the  judges  of  the  earth  be 
instructed.  Let  them  pay  allegiance  aud  do  liomage 
to  this  sovereign,  lest  they  perish  in  his  anger,  which 
will  soon  be  kindled.  And  as  his  grace  is  equal  to 
his  power  and  his  justice,  blessed  are  all  they  that 
put  their  trust  in  him.  Christ's  kingdom  is  not  of 
this  world,  in  its  origin  or  character.  He  came  not 
to  be  a  judge  or  a  divider,  a  secular  ruler  or  a  military 
chieftain.     But  he  must,  even  here,  reign.    His  reign 


40  SERMONS. 

must  and  shall  be  universal.     And  the  prospect  of 
this  issue  is  the  hope  of  the  world. 

There  is  no  more  cheering  anticipation  than  that 
Christ  is  one  day  to  be  king  of  nations ;  that  his 
realm  is  not  to  reacli,  like  that  of  David,  from  the 
Eed  Sea  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  from  the  Euphra- 
tes to  the  desert,  but  from  sea  to  sea,  and  from  the 
river  to  the  ends  of  tlie  earth.  To  this  vast  empire, 
and  to  Him  who  rules  it,  we,  or  they  who  shall  come 
after  us,  may  one  day  point  in  triumphant  answer  to 
the  question,  "Where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of 
the  Jews  ?  "  He  that  was  born  king  of  the  Jews,  and 
who  never  literally  carried  even  that  crown,  shall  be 
seen  seated  as  jt  were  upon  the  throne  of  all  the  an- 
cient emperors  and  imperial  sovereignties — Sesostris 
and  Cyrus,  Alexander  and  Caesar ;  the  lost  empires 
shall  revive  in  him,  and  all  the  crowns  of  earth  shall 
meet  upon  the  brow  of  him  who  was  "  born  king  of 
the  Jews." 

To  this  general  confluence  of  nations  there  shall 
not  be  even  one  exception.  Even  one,  however 
slight,  would  seem  to  mar  the  triumph.  There  is  one 
esjDecially  which  could  not  but  have  this  effect.  The 
people  that  rejected  him — the  seed  of  Abraham — to 
whom  were  committed  the  oracles  of  God — to  whom 
once  pertained  the  adoption,  and  the  glory,  and  the 
covenants,  and  the  giving  of  the  law,  and  the  service 
of  God,  and  the  promises — whose  were  the  fathers, 
and  of  whom,  as  concerning  the  flesh,  Christ  came, 
who  is  over  all,  God  blessed  for  ever.  If  these 
should  still  remain  aloof,  the  glory  of  Immanuel's 
coronation  might  seem  to  be  obscured  or  tarnished. 


II 


MATTHEW  2,  2.  ^  41 

it^ot  that  the  promises  of  God  would  even  then  fail 
of  their  accomplishment.  JSTot  that  the  Israel  of 
God  would  even  then  cease  to  exist,  or  the  perpetual 
succession  of  its  members  be  at  all  interrupted.  But 
the  hearts  that  pant  for  the  Eedeemer's  exaltation 
might  feel  something  to  be  wanting.  As  thej  stood 
around  his  throne,  and  looked  beyond  the  brilliant 
circle  that  encompassed  it,  if  they  still  beheld  the  lost 
sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel  refusing  to  return  to  the 
Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  their  souls,  they  might  recall 
the  promise,  "  All  kings  shall  fall  down  before  him,  all 
nations  shall  serve  him  ;"  and  then  say,  "  all  nations  ? 
Ah,  yes,  all  but  one,  and  that,  alas,  the  very  one  that  he 
was  born  to  rule.  The  kings  of  Tarshish  and  the  isles 
do  bring  presents  ;  the  kings  of  Sheba  and  of  Seba  do 
oiler  gifts ;  they  that  dwell  in  the  wilderness  have  bow- 
ed before  him  ;  and  all  his  other  enemies  have  licked 
the  dust ; — but  where  is  little  Benjamin,  and  Ephraim, 
and  Manasseh  ?  where  is  Judah,  with  his  lion  ?  where 
is  Levi  with  his  Thummim  and  his  IJrim  ?  where,  oh, 
where  are  the  tribes  of  his  inheritance?  The  Gentiles 
are  here,  but  Israel  still  dwells  alone.  Our  King  is, 
indeed,  the  King  of  nations  ;  the  King  of  kings ; — but 
"  where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of  the  Jews  V 

Even  in  this  respect,  the  answer  will  eventually  be 
auspicious.  He  that  was  born  king  of  the  Jews  shall 
yet  reign  over  them.  He  shall  be  not  only  their 
rightful  but  their  actual  sovereign.  As  such  he  shall 
be  acknowledged  by  them.  As  he  reigns  already 
king  of  the  Jews,  over  the  Israel  of  God  which  is  per- 
petuated in  his  Church,  so  shall  he  one  day  reign 
king  of  the  Jews,  over  those  who  are  such  outwardly, 


42  SERMONS. 

over  Israel  according  to  the  flesli.  Tliis  tLe  promise 
of  his  "Word  entitles  and  requires  us  to  expect.  It  is 
the  cherished  and  exciting  faitli  of  some,  that  the  seed 
of  Abraham  are  to  be  literally  gathered  from  tiie  four 
winds,  and  from  all  parts  of  the  earth,  once  more  to 
take  possession  of  the  land  bestowed  by  covenant  on 
their  fathers.  Whether  this  be  expressly  promised  in 
the  Word  of  God  or  not — a  question  which  will  prob- 
ably continue  to  be  agitated  till  it  is  resolved  by  some 
event — there  are  providential  signs  which  seem  to 
point  to  such  an  issue.  The  land  of  promise  almost 
empty  of  inhabitants  ;  the  Jews  dispersed  without  a 
country  of  their  own ;  their  slight  connexion  with  the 
countries  where  they  dwell ;  the  nature  of  their  occu- 
pations tending  to  facilitate  a  general  removal ;  and 
in  many  instances  their  social  position  making  it 
desirable  ; — all  this,  together  with  a  re-awakening  of 
their  interest  in  the  land  of  their  fathers,  and  the  bii'tli 
of  a  new  interest  in  them  upon  the  part  of  Christians, 
may  be  plausibly  intei*preted  as  providential  indica- 
tions of  precisely  such  a  change  as  some  interpreters 
of  prophecy  suppose  to  be  predicted.  If  these  antici- 
pations should  be  realized,  and  Israel  should  again 
take  root  downward  in  his  own  land,  and  bear  fruit 
upward,  how  conspicuously  would  the  regal  rights  of 
the  Redeemer  be  asserted  and  established  by  the  visi- 
ble subjection  of  the  Jewish  nation  to  his  peaceful 
sway  ?  In  every  new  accession  to  the  swelling  popu- 
lation of  the  Goodly  Land  from  other  nations,  we 
should  see  repeated  the  acknowledgment  of  Jesus  as 
the  Sen  of  David  by  his  hereditary  subjects,  and  his 
kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh — ^from  every  caravan 


MATTHEW  2,  2.  43 

and  every  fleet  that  bore  them  homeward — we  might 
hear  the  voice  of  Israel  coming  iDack  to  his  allegiance, 
asking,  Where  is  he  that  is  born  King  of  the  Jews  ? 

But  however  joyful  such  a  consummation  might  be, 
and  on  some  accounts  devoutly  to  be  wished,  the  final 
exaltation  of  our  Lord  is  not  suspended  on  it,  even 
with  respect  to  his  acknowledgment  by  Israel. 
Though  Israel  be  not  gathered,  and  externally  re- 
organized upon  the  soil  once  gladdened  by  the  pres- 
ence, and  still  hallowed  by  the  tombs  of  patriarchs, 
and  prophets,  and  apostles  ;  though  perpetual  exclu- 
sion from  that  precious  spot  of  earth  be  part  of  God's 
irrevocable  judgment  on  the  race  as  such  considered, 
still,  we  know  that  they  shall  be  restored  to  a  partici- 
pation in  the  honours  and  advantages  which  were 
once  exclusively  their  own,  and  from  which  they 
have  fallen  by  rejecting  tlie  Messiah,  we  know  and 
are  assured  that  the  exsiccated  branches  of  that  an- 
cient olive,  shall  again  be  grafted  in — and  that  in 
some  emphatic  sense  all  Israel  shall  be  saved  ;  and 
in  the  glorious  fulfilment  of  this  promise,  whether 
accompanied  or  not  by  territorial  restoration,  Christ's 
crown  and  sceptre  shall  be  honoured.  Every  Jew 
who  names  the  name  of  Christ  as  a  believer,  whether 
at  the  holy  city  or  among  the  Gentiles,  and  in  the 
very  end  of  the  earth,  will  individually  do*  him 
homage  as  the  Son  of  David.  As  soon  as  the  spirit 
of  inquiry  shall  begin  to  be  diflnsed  among  that  peo- 
ple, and  the  veil  to  be  taken  from  their  hearts  in  the 
reading  of  the  Old  Testament ;  as  soon  as  the  eyes  of 
those  now  blind  shall  see  clearly,  and  the  tongue  of 
the   stammerer    speak    plainly ;    even    though   they 


44:  SERMONS. 

sliould  continue  still  dispersed  among  the  nations; 
there  will  be  something  like  a  repetition  of  the  scene 
presented  eighteen  centuries  ago,  but  on  a  vastly 
wider  scale,  for  the  children  of  Israel  will  then  be 
seen  uniting  with  the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles  in  the 
question :  "  Where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of  the  Jews  ?" 
Such,  my  hearers,  are  the  answers  which,  at 
different  stages  in  the  progress  of  Christ's  kingdom, 
have  been,  or  might  have  been,  or  shall  be  yet  re- 
turned to  the  question  originally  asked  by  the  wise 
men,  who  came  from  the  east  to  Jerusalem  in  the 
days  of  Herod,  Where  is  He,  that  is  bom  king  of  the 
Jews  1  Where  is  he  ?  in  the  manger  as  a  helj^less 
infant.  On  the  cross,  as  a  sacrifice  for  sinners.  On 
the  cloud,  ascending  into  heaven.  On  earth  invisibly 
jDartaking  in  the  prayers  of  even  two  or  three  devoutly 
gathered  for  his  worship.  At  the  right  hand  of  the 
Father.  On  the  throne  of  universal  providental  sov- 
ereignty. On  the  throne  of  Christendom.  On  the 
throne  of  the  Gentiles.  On  the  throne  of  Israel. 
From  every  such  view  of  his  exaltation  let  us  gather 
fresh  assurance  that  the  purpose  and  promises  of  God 
can  never  fail,  that  whatever  clouds  may  hide  the  sky, 
shall,  sooner  or  later,  be  dispelled  ;  that,  however 
long  the  rights  of  the  Redeemer  may  appear  to  be 
]-elinquished  or  denied  or  in  abeyance,  they  shall  yet 
be  openly  asserted  and  universally  acknowledged, 
that  he  who  was  born  to  reign,  shall  reign,  that  his 
dominion  shall  be  endless,  that  the  very  .things  which 
seem  to  threaten  its  extinction  shall  eventfully  further 
it.  If  even  the  apostacy  and  casting  off  of  Israel, 
the  chosen  race  with  whom  the  church  of  old  ap- 


MATTHEW  2,  2.  45 

peared  to  be  identified,  did  not  prevent  its  continued 
existence  and  progressive  growth  nntil  the  present 
hour,  what  disaftection  or  resistance,  personal,  or 
national,  can  now  arrest  its  onward  march  to  uni 
versal  empire.  E"o,  let  Bethlehem,  and  Calvary, 
and  Olivet,  and  Paradise,  and  Christendom,  and 
Jewry  all  bear  witness,  that  what  he  was  born  to 
bring  about  must  come  to  pass  ;  the  day,  though  dis- 
tant, shall  arrive  when  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  are 
to  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord,  and  of  his 
Christ ;  and  when  the  jomt  Hallelujah  of  angels  and 
men,  of  the  church  on  earth,  and  of  the  church  in 
heaven,  of  Jews  and  Gentiles,  shall  proclaim  the  final 
and  eternal  answer  to  the  question,  "Where  is  he  that 
is  born  kmg  of  the  Jews  ?  " 


III. 


John  13,  7. — ^^Vhat  I  do  thou  knowest  not  now;   but  thou  shall 
know  hereafter. 

These  words  relate  to  an  astonisliing  act  of  con- 
descension in  our  Saviour  just  before  lie  suffered. 
JSI'ot  contented  witli  tlie  proofs  lie  had  already  given 
of  his  lowliness  and  willingness  to  be  abased  that  we 
might  be  exalted,  at  his  last  meeting  with  the  twelve, 
he  crowned  all  by  performing  the  most  humble  act 
of  service  to  his  own  disciples.  He  took  water,  as  the 
slaves  in  those  days  were  accustomed  to  do  for  their 
masters  and  their  guests,  and  washed  the  disciples' 
feet.  It  is  impossible  for  us  even  now,  to  read  of  this 
without  a  keen  feeling  of  disapprobation.  For  a 
moment  at  least,  it  seems  as  if  the  Saviour  did  too 
much,  as  if  he  went  too  far  ;  no  Avonder  then  that  it 
took  the  apostles  by  surprise,  and  that  the  boldest 
and  most  freespoken  of  them  dared  to  say  as  much  ; 
nay,  even  ventured  to  refuse  compliance,  saying. 
Lord,  dost  thou  wash  my  feet?  And  even  after 
Christ  had  answered  this  inquiry  in  the  language  of 
the  text,  he  persevered  in  his  refusal,-  saying  with 
some  violence  of  feeling.  Thou  shalt  never  wash  my 
feet.     ISTor  was  it  till  our  Lord  had  solemnly  declared 


JOHN  13,  7.  47 

tliat,  unless  washed  he  could  have  no  part  with  him, 
that  the  bold  and  ardent  Peter  overcame  his  repug- 
nance to  this  humiliating  honour,  and  said.  Lord,  not 
my  feet  onlj^,  but  also  my  hands  and  my  head. 

What  I  wish  you  to  attend  to  now  is  not  the  par- 
ticular design  and  meaning  of  his  strange  proceed- 
ing, but  the  way  in  which  our  Saviour  dealt  with  Pe- 
ter's difficulties  and  reluctance.  He  knew  that  Peter 
did  not  understand  what  he  was  doing,  and  because 
he  could  not  understand  it,  he  was  not  willing  to  ex- 
plain it  to  him.  It  might  have  seemed  that  the  sim- 
plest way  to  overcome  his  scruples  was  by  telling 
him  exactly  wliat  he  wished  to  know,  by  saying, 
"What  I  mean  by  this  preaching  is  to  teach  you 
such  and  such  a  doctrine,  or  to  produce  such  and  such 
an  impression  on  you,"  But  he  gives  him  no  such 
satisfaction.  He  only  intimates  that  it  will  be  given 
at  some  future  time ;  "  What  I  do  thou  knowest  not 
now,  but  thou  shalt  know  hereafter."  This  is  in  per- 
fect agreement  with  our  Saviour's  customary  method 
of  proceeding.  He  requires  implicit  confidence  in 
him  and  unconditional  submission.  What  he  did 
on  this  occasion  is  precisely  what  he  is  continually 
doing  in  his  church.  He  requires  his  people  to 
walk  by  faith  and  not  by  sight ;  to  believe  what  they 
cannot  fully  comprehend  ;  to  do  what  they  cannot 
altogether  approve  except  on  his  authority.  This  is 
true  of  some  of  his  most  sacred  institutions.  What 
he  did  to  his  disciples  upon  this  occasion  was  not 
meant  to  be  repeated  as  a  public  ceremony  of  the 
church,  although  many  have  imagined  that  it  was, 
and  have  continued  to  this  day  as  a  superstitious  form. 


48  SERMONS. 

But  there  are  other  things  which  were  designed  to 
be  perpetual,  and  which  men  are  sometimes  disposed 
to  slight  or  quarrel  with,  because  they  do  not  fully 
understand  their  meaning  or  their  use.  This  is  the 
spirit  which  has  led  some  who  call  themselves  Chris- 
tians to  tamper  with  the  sacraments  which  Christ 
himself  has  instituted  and  required  to  be  observed 
until  his  second  coming.  Some  do  not  see  the  use 
of  washing  with  water  in  the  name  of  the  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  and  therefore  discontinue  it, 
professing  to  rely  upon  inward  spiritual  baj^tism,  al- 
though many  soon  disj^ense  with  this,  because  having 
once  determined  to  do  nothing  and  submit  to  nothing 
which  they  cannot  fully  com-prehend  and  explain, 
they  are  forced  to  give  up  every  thing  in  turn,  be- 
cause in  fact  there  is  nothing  at  all  which  they  can 
fully  understand  and  account  for.  In  like  manner, 
some  begin  in  changing  the  form  of  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per, and  end  with  setting  it  aside  altogether  as  a 
useless  and  unmeaning  form.  And  some  who  do  not 
meddle  with  the  administration  of  the  ordinance,  re- 
fuse to  partake  of  it,  and  thereby  publicly  profess  their 
faith,  although  they  claim  to  be  believers  and  true 
Christians.  They  cannot  see  why  such  a  form  is 
necessary,  or  what  useful  purpose  it  can  answer, 
either  to  themselves  or  others,  if  they  have  the  right 
religious  views  and  feelings,  not  observing  that  obe- 
dience to  Christ's  positive  commands  is  one  of  the 
most  certain  tests  of  true  or  false  religious  views  and 
feelings,  and  that  if  this  obedience  is  withheld  there 
is  no  conclusive  proof  that  inward  piety  exists  at  all. 
The  spirit  of  all  such  disaffection  to  the  ordinances  of 


JOHN  13,  r.  49 

God's  house  is  that  which  actuated  Peter  when  he 
said  "  Thou  shalt  never  wash  my  feet,"  and  to  all  who 
cherish  it  or  act  upon  it,  Christ  himself  may  be  heard 
saying,  "  If  I  wash  thee  not,  thou  hast  no  part  with 
me,"  but  yet  adding,  with  a  gracious  condescension 
to  the  weakness  of  the  true  believer,  "what  I  do  tliou 
knowest  not  now,  but  thou  shalt  know  hereafter." 

Such  is  God's  method  of  proceeding  not  only  in 
this  case  but  in  every  other.  We  cannot  live  without 
taking  many  things  on  trust,  without  believing  and 
obeying  where  we  do  not  fully  understand.  What  is 
there  that  we  do  thus  understand?  The  world  is  full 
of  mysteries  and  wonders.  The  very  things  that 
seem  most  simple  and  with  which  we  think  ourselves 
most  perfectly  acquainted  are  really  beyond  our  com- 
prehension. The  heavens  and  the  earth,  the  water 
and  the  air,  are  full  of  strange  and  surprising  objects. 
Wc  cannot  explain  fully  how  the  slightest  change 
takes  place  among  the  thousands  that  are  going  on 
around  us.  How  does  the  grass  grow  ?  or  the  fruit 
ripen?  or  the  seasons  change?  Because  we  know 
that  these  things  do  take  place  we  tliink  we  compre- 
hend them ;  but  we  only  know  that  they  arc,  not  how 
they  are.  And  those  who  have  gone  furthest  in 
discovering  and  explaining  what  are  called  the  laws 
of  nature,  only  differ  in  degree  from  the  most  igno- 
rant, and  are-  often  the  readiest  to  acknowledce  that 
they  have  not  reached  the  bottom  of  those  mysteries, 
that  after  all  their  explanations  and  discoveries,  there 
is  something  yet  to  be  discovered  and  explained. 
This  is  the  general  rule  and  law  throughout  the  uni- 
verse, that  what  God  is  and  what  God  does,  is  and 

VOL.  I. — 3 


50  SERMONh. 

must  be  beyond  the  comprehension  of  his  creatures. 
We  cannot  find  out  the  Almighty  to  perfection — such 
knowledge  is  too  wonderful  for  us — we  cannot  attain 
to  it— his  counsels  are  unsearchable  and  his  ways 
are  past  finding  out.  He  lets  us  know  and  under- 
stand enough,  not  only  to  provide  for  our  own  safety 
and  enjoyment,  but  to  make  us  anxious  to  know  more, 
and  sensible  how  little  we  know  now — and  at  the 
same  time  to  fill  us  with  an  awful  reverence  for  Him 
who  is  producing  all  these  changes  and  carrying  on 
these  mighty  operations  in  our  own  world  and  in  all 
worlds,  without  even  making  a  mistake  or  failing  to 
eflfect  his  purpose. 

True,  to  us  a  large  part  of  these  wonderful  works 
are  neither  seen  nor  heard,  and  if  we  saw  and  heard 
them,  we  should  not  comprehend  them.  It  is  not 
certain  how  far  we  shall  ever  fully  comprehend 
them.  Even  after  ages  have  elapsed,  when  we  have 
grown  in  knowledge  and  capacity  beyond  our  highest 
thoughts  and  expectations,  there  will  still  be  much, 
not  only  in  God  himself,  but  in  his  works  which  we 
do  not  understand.  We  shall  know  more  and  more 
to  all  eternity,  but  never  can  know  all.  And  this  is 
one  of  the  most  gracious  hopes  set  before  us,  that  if 
saved  we  shall  never  cease  to  rise  and  make  advances 
in  the  knowledge  and  admiration  of  God's  works  and 
of  himself  If  this  was  to  cease,  even  millions  of 
years  hence,  the  promise  might  seem  to  be  imperfect 
and  misatisfying.  But  it  is  not  to  cease — at  any 
point  which  we  can  fix  upon — however  much  we  may 
have  learned  there  will  be  something  to  learn  still. 
And  yet  it  is  encouraging  to  know  that  much  that 


JOHN  13  r.  51 

now  seems  strange  and  unaccountable  m  the  world 
bj  which  we  are  surrounded  and  of  which  we  form  a 
part  will  one  day  be  made  clear  to  us.  If  the  uni- 
verse, instead  of  being  silent,  had  a  voice,  or  rather  if 
we  had  ears  to  hear  the  voice  of  God  himself  speak- 
ing to  us  in  the  winds,  the  waves,  in  the  earth  and 
in  the  skies,  in  beasts  and  birds,  and  in  the  growth 
of  plants,  we  might  distinctly  hear  him  saying  to  all 
these  things  which  now  surprise  us  most,  "  What  I  do 
thou  knowest  not  now,  but  thou  shalt  know  here- 
after." 

This  may  be  said  to  be  a  law  of  nature,  but  it  is 
also  a  law  of  providence.  However  often  Ave  may 
witness  or  experience  God's  dispensations,  they  still 
take  us  by  surprise.  Even  those  which  are  most  fre- 
quently repeated,  and  which  seem  most  alike,  still 
have  something  to  excite  our  Avonder.  A  destructive 
fire  still  affects  us  as  if  no  such  had  occurred  before. 
A  prevailing  sickness  may  appear,  and  disappear, 
and  reappear,  and  after  all  seem  something  new. 
The  wicked  world  in  Koah's  time  was  just  as  much 
siirprised  when  the  flood  came  as  if  they  had  received 
no  wai-ning.  All  this  is  really  produced  by  a  secret 
unbelief.  But  besides  this,  there  is  always  something 
in  these  great  calamities  and  general  A'isitations  which 
is  contrary  to  what  we  look  for.  "When  we  hear  of 
the  pestilence  as  raging  elsewhere  and  approaching, 
we  may  expect  it  to  arrive,  but  when  it  does  arrive, 
it  takes  a  course  or  takes  a  shape  which  Ave  were  not 
prepared  for.  We  wonder  why  this  place  is  visited 
and  that  passed  by.  We  try  to  ascertain  the  cause 
of  what  we  see,  but  all  our  speculations  are  in  vain. 


5^  SERMONS. 

Those  who  seemed  likely  tc  be  svrept  away  siii'vive, 
and  those  who  seemed  safest  fall  the  first.  And  so 
it  is  in  some  degree  with  other  great  catastrophes. 
A  riot  suddenly  breaks  out  in  a  great  city,  and  the 
troops  are  called  out,  and  the  first  shot  fired  strikes 
the  heart  of  one  who  merely  happened  to  be  passing. 
An  explosion  takes  place  and  destroys  the  lives  of 
some  who  did  not  know  of  the  existence  of  the  danger, 
while  those  who  knew  it  and  perhaps  produced  it,  are 
miraculously  saved.  Disease  invades  a  household  and 
destroys  its  members  one  by  one,  whilst  all  around 
escape.  The  young,  the  healthy,  those  upon  whom 
most  are  dependent,  fall  by  accident  or  sickness,  while 
the  old  and  helpless,  who  have  long  been  waiting  their 
discharge,  still  linger  even  when  deprived  of  those  by 
whom  they  were  sustained  and  comforted.  [Examples 
of  this  kind  are  continually  occurring,  and  exciting, 
even  in  the  minds  of  Christians,  a  secret  discontent 
and  inclination  to  find  fault,  which  often  lurks  at  the 
bottom  of  their  hearts  even  when  they  seem  to  ac- 
quiesce in  the  divine  dispensations,  and  indeed  until 
their  minds  are  so  far  cleared,  and  their  excited  feel- 
ings so  far  calmed  that  they  can  hear  God  saying 
even  in  the  fire,  and  the  earthquake,  and  the  tempest, 
and  the  pestilence,  "  What  I  do  thou  knowest  not 
now,  but  thou  shalt  know  hereafter." 

And  if  this  is  the  case  of  those  who  merely  look 
at  the  calamities  of  others  as  spectators,  how  much 
more  natural  is  such  a  feeling  on  the  part  of  those 
who  are  themselves  the  objects  of  these  providential 
visitations.  Oh  how  hard,  how  hopeless,  does  the 
task  seem,  to  suppress  all  risings  c  f  rebellious  discon- 


JOHN"  13,  7.  53 

tent,  when  we  are  tolched  ourselves  by  what  appears 
to  us  to  be  a  cruel  and  untimely  stroke.  How  nat- 
ural and  reasonable  does  it  often  seem  to  say,  as  some 
do  say  to  themselves  or  others,  "  I  could  have  borne 
this  without  a  murmur,  a  little  sooner  or  a  little  later, 
but  at  this  moment  it  is  hard  indeed."  Or  the  lan- 
guage of  the  heart  may  be,  I  should  not  have  re- 
sisted or  repined  under  a  severer  stroke  but  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind.  If  it  had  been  my  business,  not  my 
health ;  or  my  health,  but  not  my  reputation  ;  or  my- 
self, but  not  my  family  ;  or  this  friend,  but  not  that, 
and  so  on  through  a  thousand  suppositions  of  what 
might  liave  been  but  is  not  true,  I  could  have  bowed 
without  a  murmur.  In  all  this  there  is  certainly  a 
great  delusion.  Had  the  stroke  been  different,  the 
effect  would  still  have  been  the  same.  And  even 
where  there  would  have  been  a  difference,  that  differ 
ence  may  itself  have  been  the  reason  of  the  choice, 
because  a  stroke  which  is  not  felt,  or  which  is  felt  too 
lightly,  would  not  answer  the  severe  but  gracious 
purpose  of  the  Lord  in  smiting  us  at  all.  But  even 
when  this  is  acknowledged  and  believed,  it  may  be 
hard  to  see  wherein  the  gracious  purpose  lies,  and 
therefore  hard  to  acquiesce  in  the  benevolence  and 
wisdom  of  that  Providence  which  causes  us  or  suffers 
us  to  suffer.  Such  submission  may  be  wrought  and 
is  continually  wrought  by  sovereign  grace  without 
imparting  any  clearer  knowledge  of  God's  immediate 
purpose  by  inspiring  strong  faith  in  his  benevolence 
and  truth,  so  that  the  soul  is  satisfied  with  knowing 
that  it  is  the  will  of  God,  and  therefore  must  be  right, 
best  for  his  honor  and  his  creatures'  welfare. 


54:  SERMONS. 

Even  siacli,  however,  may  derive  a  pleasing  solace 
from  the  hope  that  what  seems  now  so  unaccountable, 
will  one  day  be  intelligible  even  to  themselves.  And 
when  tliey  look  at  the  most  doubtful  and  perplexing 
circumstances  of  their  case,  at  which  perhaps  their 
faith  was  staggered,  and  their  hope  sickened,  but  in 
which  God  has  now  enabled  them  to  acquiesce,  they 
may  find  it  easier  to  do  so  when  they  call  to  mind 
that,  although  they  are  bound  to  yield  whether  they 
ever  knew  the  meaning  of  these  strange  dispensations 
or  not,  they  are  permitted  to  believe  that  they  shall 
yet  know  at  least  something  more,  perhaps  much 
more,  perhaps  as  much  as  they  could  wish  to  know, 
or  need  to  know  in  order  to  be  perfectly  contented  with 
their  lot,  and  as  this  quieting  persuasion  takes  posses- 
sion of  their  souls,  their  ears  are  suddenly  unstopped, 
and  made  to  tingle  with  these  sweet  but  solemn 
words,  "  "What  I  do  thou  knowest  not  now,  but  thou 
shalt  know  hereafter." 

The  application  which  I  have  been  making  of 
these  words  to  God's  providential  dispensations  when 
they  take  the  shape  of  personal  or  national  calamities, 
may  all  seem  natural  enough  and  be  received  with- 
out a  doubt  of  their  correctness,  not  because  the  text 
itself  includes  all  this  directly,  but  because  the  prin- 
ciple, the  rule  which  it  lays  down  is  not  confined  to 
the  original  occasion,  nor  to  religious  rites  and  insti- 
tutions, but  extends  to  every  case  in  which  men  can 
be  called  to  acquiesce  and  to  obey  from  general  trust 
in  God,  or  deference  to  his  will,  without  fully  know- 
ing for  what  reason  or  what  purpose  in  particular. 
Now  of  this  there  are  no  examples  more  familiar  or 


JOHN  13,  7.  55 

affecting  than  t.iose  fiimislied  by  severe  afflictions, 
whether  such  as  affect  only  individuals  and  families, 
or  such  as  more  or  less  affect  a  whole  community,  and 
therefore  there  will  probably  be  little  disposition  to 
dispute  the  application  of  the  text  to  all  such  cases. 

But  there  is  another  application  not  so  obvious, 
to  which  I  am  anxious,  for  that  very  reason,  to  direct 
your  thoughts,  lest  the  instructions  and  the  warnings 
here  afforded  should  lose  a  part  of  their  effect  from 
being  too  much  confined  in  their  application,  so  that 
those  perhaps  in  most  need  of  the  lesson  which  the 
Spirit  of  God  teaches,  may  depart  without  it.  You 
admit  perhaps  that  with  respect  to  God's  works,  and 
the  changes  continually  going  on  in  nature,  you  must 
wait  for  clearer  light,  and  you  are  willing  so  to  do, 
perhaps  are  well  content  to  wait  forever.  You  also 
admit  that  in  reference  to  the  meaning  and  design  of 
God's  afflictive  dispensations,  with  respect  both  to 
the  many  and  the  few,  both  to  others  and  yourselves, 
it  is  right  and  necessary  to  be  satisfied  with  knowing 
in  the  general  that  God  is  just  and  merciful,  that  what 
he  does  not  only  is,  but  must  be  right,  not  only  right 
but  best,  best  for  him  and  best  for  you,  and.  that 
therefore  you  may  rationally  wait  for  any  further  ex- 
planation or  discovery.  But  has  the  thought  oc- 
curred to  you  that  this  is  no  more  true  of  affliction 
than  of  any  other  state  or  situation  ?  that  the  only 
difference  arises  from  the  fact  that  suffering  makes 
men  think  of  this  and  feel  it,  but  docs  not  make  it 
any  truer  or  more  certain  than  it  was  before ;  and 
that  this  very  circumstance  makes  it  peculiarly  im- 
portant to  remind  men  of  the  truth  in  question,  when 


56  SERMONS. 

they  are  not  so  reminded  by  theii  outward  cr  cum- 
stances.  There  is  no  time  when  men  need  less  to  be 
warned  against  intemperance  and  imprudence  than  a 
time  of  general  sickness  and  mortality,  for  this  very 
state  of  things  is  a  sufficient  warning.  But  when 
health  prevails,  we  are  peculiarly  in  danger  of  forget- 
ting our  mortality  and  neglecting  the  precautions 
which  are  necessary  to  preserve  us  from  disease  and 
death.  So  too  in  the  case  before  us,  when  men  ac- 
tually suffer,  either  one  by  one  or  in  large  bodies, 
they  have  but  occasion  to  be  told  that  God  may  have 
some  purpose  to  accomplish  wliich  they  cannot  un- 
derstand at  present,  but  which  may  perhaps  be  un- 
derstood hereafter. 

]^ow  let  us  ask  ourselves  the  question  ;  May  not 
God  have  pm"poses  to  answer,  of  which  we  have  no 
suspicion,  when  he  grants  us  undisturbed  prosperity  ? 
Does  he  cease  to  reign  as  soon  as  men  cease  to  suffer  ? 
Is  his  only  instrument  the  rod  ?  Is  it  only  the  afflicted 
that  are  subject  to  his  government?  And  are  the 
rich,  the  healthy,  and  the  honoured,  the  cheerful,  the 
thoughtless,  and  the  gay,  exempt  from  his  control  ? 
Perhaps  this  is  the  secret  of  the  coldness  with  which 
most  of  us  contemplate  God's  strokes  till  they  touch 
ourselves,  despismg  the  riches  of  his  goodness,  and 
forbearance,  and  longsuffering,  not  knowing  that  the 
goodness  of  God  leadeth  to  repentance.  And  how 
few  really  regard  this  as  the  great  end  of  prosperity ; 
to  lead  men  to  repentance !  How  many  do  indeed 
believe  that  health  and  wealth  and  comfort  are  all 
means  em2)loyed  to  bring  men  to  repentance  ?  And 
if  this  is  so,   how,  seldom   does  prosperity   accom* 


JOHN  13,  7.  57 

plish  its  design :  I  mean  its  pui-poses  of  mercy ;  for 
alas !  it  has  a  twofold  tendency.  It  is  like  some  des- 
perate and  potent  remedies  for  bodily  disease.  It 
either  kills  or  cures.  Are  we  sufficiently  convinced 
of  this?  Do  we  feel  it  as  we  should  if  God  were 
pleased  to  lift  the  veil  that  overhangs  the  hearts  and 
inner  lives  of  men,  and  show  us  what  is  passing  at 
this  moment,  and  to  what  results  hereafter  it  is  tend- 
ing ?  If  you,  my  hearers,  could  be  made  to  see  that 
your  jjrosperity  is  just  as  much  a  state  of  discipline 
as  the  affliction  of  your  neighbour ;  that  your  heart, 
if  not  subdued  and  softened  by  God's  goodness  is 
continually  growing  harder;  that  the  frivolous  and 
exciting  pleasures  which  engross  you,  or  the  violent 
passions  which  inflame  and  agitate  you,  or  the  sordid 
appetites  which  enslave  and  master  you,  are  all  com- 
bining to  prepare  you  for  changes  which  you  do  not 
now  anticipate :  if  I  could  shew  you  God  looking 
.  down  upon  this  fearful  process,  and  permitting  it  to 
go  on,  as  a  righteous  recompence  of  those  who  do  not 
like  to  retain  him  in  their  knowledge,  but  revolt  from 
his  authority  and  trample  on  his  mercy,  and  treat  the 
very  blood  of  Christ  himself  as  an  unclean  thing :  if 
I  could  show  you  that  sleepless  and  untiring  eye  for- 
ever fixed  upon  your  individual  heart,  which  neither 
wrath  nor  mercy,  hope  nor  fear  have  yet  sufficed  to 
break,  when  breaking  might  have  saved  it,  and 
which,  if  it  ever  bleaks  at  all,  is  likely  to  break  only 
with  incurable  anguish  and  despair :  if  I  could  show 
you  how  completely  you  are  at  God's  mercy  in  the 
height  of  your  prosperity,  and  how  severely  he  is  try- 
ing you  by  means  of  it,  you  might  perhaps  be  brought 

VOL.  T.— 3* 


58 


SERMONS. 


to  liear  liim  say,  as  he  does  say  with  soltmn  emphasia 
"  What  I  do  thou  knowest  not  no-^-,  but  thou  shalt 
know  hereafter." 

The  dangers  thus  attending  a  state  of  high  pros- 
perity have  led  many,  who  were  destitute  of  true 
faith,  to  repeat  the  prayer,  Give  me  neither  poverty 
nor  riches.  And  some  who  hear  me  now  may  be 
ready  to  congratulate  themselves  that  the  extremes 
of  joy  and  grief  are  equally  unknown  to  their  experi- 
ence. They  are  glad  perhaps  that  though  they  do 
not  suffer,  they  are  not  the  slaves  of  passion.  They 
do  not  seek  their  happiness  in  violent  excitement. 
They  enjoy  tranquillity,  and  thank  God  for  it.  They 
are  comfortable  and  content  with  their  situation. 
Perhaps  too  contented.  Yes,  unless  possessed  of  a 
good  hope  through  grace,  they  are  certainly  too  well 
contented.  They  have  no  more  reason  to  be  satisfied 
than  the  sufferer  with  his  sufferings,  or  the  man  of 
j)leasure  with  his  sinful  joys.  Especially  is  this  the 
case  if  they  imagine  that,  while  God  directs  the  lot  of 
others,  he  is  letting  them  alone,  i.  e.  allowing  them  to 
be  at  ease  w^ithout  those  dangers  to  which  others  are 
exposed. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  he  may  indeed  be  letting 
them  alone,  giving  them  up  to  themselves,  allowing 
them  to  stagnate  and  to  putrify,  if  not  in  vice,  in  self- 
ish indolence,  spiritual  sloth,  and  carnal  security. 
Because  they  are  exempt  from  sore  distress  on  one 
hand,  and  from  gross  sins  on  the  other,  they  imagine 
themselves  safe  and  even  happy.  They  forget  that 
although  they  may  be  idle,  Satan  is  at  work,  employ- 
ing every  art  to  shield  them  from  the  light  and  make 


JOHN  13,  7,  59 

them  sleep  more  soundly ;  that  the  world  aroimd 
them  is  at  work  to  render  them  more  drowsy  by  the 
hum  and  murmur  of  its  business  and  its  pleasures,  so 
that  when  they  open  their  eyes  for  a  moment,  they 
immediately  fall  back  again  and  dream  on  as  they 
have  dreamed  before. 

Kor  is  this  all.  While  evil  spirits  and  a  wicked 
world  are  thus  at  work  uj^on  the  stupid  soul,  it  may 
be  said  without  irreverence  that  God  himself  is  not 
inactive.  He  is  not  an  indifferent  spectator,  but  a 
sovereign  and  a  judge.  "  Let  no  man  say  when  he  is 
tempted  I  am  tempted  of  God ;  for  God  cannot  be 
tempted  with  evil,  neither  tempteth  he  any  man. 
But  every  man  is  tempted  when  he  is  drawn  away  of 
his  own  lusts  and  enticed.  Then  when  lust  hath  con- 
ceived it  bringeth  forth  sin,  and  sin,  when  it  is  fin- 
ished, bringeth  forth  death."  "Tlie  sting  of  death  is 
sin  and  the  strength  of  sin  is  the  law."  And  the  law 
is  the  law  of  God,  and  neither  men  nor  devils  can 
offend  against  it  unless  he  suffer  them.  And  when 
he  suffers  them  he  may  comply  with  their  governing 
desire.  But  at  the  same  time  will  he  take  vengeance 
on  them.  To  a  sinner  no  divine  stroke  can  in  this  life 
be  so  fearful  as  the  stroke  of  letting  him  alone.  As 
God  is  not  and  cannot  be  the  aiithor  of  sin,  the  worst 
he  can  in  this  life  do  is  to  let  men  do  as  they  please. 
Beyond  this  nothing  is  required  to  ruin  them.  Their 
native  tendency  is  downwards.  There  is  no  need  of 
creating  it.  It  is  sufficient  not  to  stop  or  change  it. 
Nothing  can  possibly  do  either  but  divine  grace. 
And  in  multitudes  of  cases  it  does  both.  And  in  the 
case  of  all  who  hear  the  gospel  it  is  offered.     And  In 


QQ  SERMONS. 

the  case  of  some  that  offer  is  long  continued  and  fre- 
quently repeated.  But  its  being  offered  even  tD  a 
single  soul,  or  for  a  single  moment,  is  a  miracle  of 
mercy.  If  no  one  has  a  right  to  it  at  first,  much  less 
has  any  one  a  right  to  it  forever.  For  then  the 
longer  men  refused  God's  mercy,  the  more  would  he 
be  bound  to  offer  it,  which  is  too  absurd  to  be  be- 
lieved. And  if  this  offer,  even  for  a  moment,  is 
an  act  of  God's  free  grace,  and  might  have  been 
■withheld  without  the  slightest  imputation  on  .his 
justice  or  his  mercy,  who  will  charge  him  with  vio- 
lating either  if,  when  a  man  has  long  despised  the 
Son  and  quenched  the  Spirit,  he  should  be  permitted 
by  the  Father  to  go  on  as  he  desu*es  and  is  resolved, 
to  do  precisely  what  he  wishes,  to  be  just  what  he  in- 
tends to  be.  Is  this  unmerciful,  unjust,  or  cruel? 
AVhat,  unjust  to  let  him  have  what  he  claims  as  his 
right  ?  Cruel  to  leave  him  undisturbed  ?  When  lie 
has  over  and  over  refused  to  accept  God's  invitation 
and  impoi-tunately  prayed  to  be  let  alone.  Can  he  com- 
plain that  God  should  take  him  at  his  word,  and  now 
withhold  what  he  might  have  withheld  from  the  be- 
ginning? Such  an  abandonmeiit  is  doubly  just.  It 
gives  the  man  precisely  what  he  claims,  and  at  the 
same  time  asserts  God's  sovereignty  and  vindicates  his 
justice  by  allowing  it  to  take  its  course. 

It  seems  then  that  of  all  conditions  in  the  present 
life,  there  is  none  more  terrible  than  that  of  being  let 
alone.  And  when  this  is  the  secret  of  men's  calmness 
or  contentment,  they  have  just  as  little  reason  to  con- 
gratulate themselves  that  they  are  thus  left  midis- 
turbed,  as  the  drov\Tiing  man  has  to  congratulate  him 


JOHN  13,  7.  ^ 

self  that  he  is  left  to  sink  without  the  trouble  and  vex- 
ation of  seizing  on  the  saving  hand  held  out  for  his 
deliverance,  or  the  poisoned  man  that  he  is  not  re- 
quired to  take  an  unpalatable  antidote,  or  the  convict 
on  his  way  to  execution  that  he  is  not  interrupted  hj 
a  pardon  or  reprieve,  but  suffered  to  continue  his 
journey  in  tranquil  indifference.  My  hearers,  if  I 
could  convince  you  that  the  ease  which  you  enjoy  is 
such  as  I  have  described,  I  am  sure  that  you  would 
instantly  hear  him  who  would  have  saved  you,  but 
who  now  perhaps  consents  to  leave  you  to  yourself  as 
you  desire,  saying,  "What  I  do  thou  knowest  not 
now,  but  thou  shalt  know  hereafter." 

In  all  these  views  we  have  been  looking  forward, 
trying  to  anticipate  that  which  is  still  future.  But 
the  time  is  coming  when  we  shall  look  back  at  the 
same  objects  from  a  very  different  point  of  observa- 
tion— and  look  at  them  no  longer  as  mere  possibili- 
ties, but  actual  realities.  It  is  a  fearful  supposition, 
but  it  cannot  make  your  danger  any  greater  than  it 
is,  to  suppose,  my  hearer,  that  your  soul  is  to  be  lost, 
and  that  when  it  is  lost  you  will  still  be  able  to  re- 
trace the  steps  by  which  you  travelled  to  perdition. 
When  you  thus  look  back — among  the  various  feel- 
ings which  will  struggle  with  each  other  for  predomi- 
nance in  your  soul,  one  of  the  strongest  must  be 
wonder  at  your  own  infatuation  in  not  seeing  to  what 
end  your  purpose  and  conduct  here  were  tending — in 
not  knowing  that  the  world  and  the  devil  and  your 
own  corruption  were  at  work  to  make  affliction  and 
prosperity  and  even  tranquillity  all  contribute  to  your 
ruin — and  that  God  himself,  by  every  gift  and  every 


62  SERMONS. 

judgment,  and  even  by  his  silence  and  forbearance, 
was  still  warning  you  that,  though  the  end  of  your 
course  was  not  yet  visible,  it  certainly  would  have 
one,  and  that  every  thing  you  did,  enjoyed,  or  suf- 
fered, was  contributing  to  give  that  end  a  character, 
to  make  it  forever  either  good  or  evil.  This,  I  say, 
will  be  an  astonishment  to  any  lost  soul — that  he  did 
not  see  all  this  beforehand — if  not  as  certain  yet  as 
possible — and  did  not  act  accordingly.  And  in  addi- 
tion to  this  wonder  at  the  general  course  pursued  in  this 
life,  there  will  no  doubt  be  particular  conjunctures, 
with  respect  to  which  it  will  appear  incredible  and 
almost  inconceivable  that  any  rational  and  moral 
being  should  have  still  continued  so  insensible  and 
blinded  when  the  gifts  of  God  were  so  peculiarly 
abundant,  or  His  judgments  so  peculiarly  severe — or 
the  comfort  and  tranquillity  enjoyed  so  perfect,  that 
to  one  reviewing  it  from  that  distant  point  of  obser- 
vation it  might  seem  that  even  sin  itself  could  not 
have  plunged  the  soul  in  such  insensibility,  or  roused 
it  to  such  madness,  as  to  hide  from  it  the  fatal  course 
which  it  was  taking,  or  to  stop  its  ears  against  the 
warning  voice  which  was  continually  sounding  from 
the  death-bed  and  the  grave,  and  the  devouring  jaws 
of  hell,  as  well  as  from  the  cross  and  the  throne,  the 
mercy  seat  and  judgment  seat  of  Christ.  Ah,  my 
hearers,  may  it  not  be  that  among  these  recollections 
will  be  that  of  the  very  opportunity  which  you  are 
now  enjoying,  and  that,  although  now  in  looking  for- 
ward you  may  see  no  sufficient  reason  for  alarm  or 
even  for  solicitude  as  to  the  end,  a  sovereign  God  is 
now  afflicting  you  or  sparing  you — yet  when  you  come 


JOHN  IS,  7.  63 

to  look  back  at  the  same  things  from  the  world  of 
woe,  you  will  regard  it  as  a  prodigy  of  spiritual 
blindness  that  you  did  not  see  what  you  will  then  see 
so  distinctly,  and  of  spiritual  deafness  that  you  did  not 
hear  what  will  then  sound  in  your  ears,  in  every  echi. 
fi'om  the  vaults  of  your  eternal  prison,  "  Wliat  I  do 
thou  knowest  not  now,  but  thou  shalt  know  here- 
after." 

Having  gone  so  far  as  to  transport  you  into  the 
eternal  world  and  to  anticipate  its  solemn  recollec- 
tions^ let  me  not  conclude  without  jiresenting  the  re- 
verse of  that  distressing  supposition  upon  which  I 
have  been  speaking.  Thanks  be  to  God  the  power  of 
recollection  is  not  to  be  monopolized  hereafter  by  the 
lost.  While  it  will,  no  doubt,  add  to  the  intensity  of 
future  torment,  it  will  magnify  and  multiply  the  joys 
of  heaven.  Yes  in  both  worlds  memory  will  survive. 
There  will  be  memory  in  hell.  There  will  be  memory 
in  heaven.  And  on  what  will  the  blissful  recollec- 
tions of  that  holy,  happy  place  be  more  intently  fas- 
tened, tlian  those  mysterious  but  effectual  means,  by 
which  a  miserable  sinful  soul  was  stopped  short  and 
turned  round  in  its  career  of  ruin,  and  while  others 
still  refused  to  be  arrested,  or  were  arrested  only  long 
enough  to  give  them  a  new  impulse  in  their  down- 
ward course,  you,  yes,  my  friend,  it  may  be  you,  were 
taken  off  from  all  corrupt  attachments  and  from  all 
false  grounds  of  hope  that  you  might  be  saved  tln'ough 
Him  who  loved  you. 

If  permitted  thus  to  look  back  at  the  way  by  which 
you  have  been  lead,  what  occasion  for  rejoicing  and 
thanksgiving  will  be  furnished  by  the  thought  that 


^  SERMONS. 

your  Saviour  did  not  suffer  you  to  wait  ti J  you  could 
fully  understand  his  requisitions,  before  trusting  and 
obeying  liim.  The  difference  between  you  and  the 
lost  will  not  be  that  the  lost  could  not  see  the  end 
from  the  beginning,  and  that  you  could  ;  but  that  the 
■  lost  insisted  upon  seeing,  and  that  you  through  grace 
were  satisfied  with  believing  ;  that  the  lost  would  only 
walk  by  sight,  and  that  you  were  enabled  and  dis- 
posed to  walk  by  faith  ;  that  the  lost  could  trust  the 
care  of  their  salvation  only  to  themselves,  and  sunk 
beneath  the  load,  while  you  had  wisdom  and  humility 
and  grace  enough  imparted  to  you  to  think  God 
stronger  than  yourself,  and  a  Saviour's  merit  greater 
than  your  own,  the  Holy  Ghost  a  better  comforter 
than  the  world,  the  flesh,  or  the  devil.  When  Jesus 
with  divine  condescension  proposed  to  wash  their  feet, 
they  replied,  with  Peter,  in  his  want  of  faith  and  of 
understanding,  "thou  shalt  never  wash  my  feet;" 
but  you  replied  with  Peter,  in  the  strength  of  his  re- 
newed love,  "  not  my  feet  only,  but  my  hands  and  my 
head."  This  is  all  the  difference,  but  it  is  enough, 
for  it  determines  your  eternal  destiny.  Happy  the 
soul  that  is  now  upon  the  right  side  of  a  question 
which  to  men  may  seem  so  unimportant.  Happy, 
forever  happy,  he  who  shall  look  back  and  see  with 
wonder  how  his  own  plans  were  defeated,  his  most 
cherished  wishes  crossed,  his  favorite  opinions  contra- 
dicted, his  highest  hopes  completely  disappointed,  and 
himself  entirely  set  at  nought,  if  thereby  he  has  saved 
his  soul ;  for  what  is  a  man  profited  if  he  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul,  or  what  shall  a 
man  give  in  exchange  for  his  soul  ?    The  loss  of  all 


JOHN  IS,  7.  65 

these  tilings  is  to  gain  a  new  heart,  to  gain  a  heaven, 
to  gain  a  God.  It  is  the  loss  of  God,  as  a  consuming 
fire,  to  gain  him  as  he  is  in  Christ,  a  fountain  of  life. 
When  possession  is  secured,  my  hearer,  it  will  be  a 
sweet  or  bitter  recollection  to  our  soul,  that  in  this 
place  and  at  this  hour,  although  some  around  you 
still  refuse  to  look  beyond  the  immediate  fruits  of  their 
misconduct,  or  to  be  persuaded  that  its  effects  would 
extend  into  eternity,  the  scales,  through  mercy,  fell  from 
your  eyes,  and  the  veil  was  gathered  up  from  off  your 
heart,  and  the  noise  of  this  world  of  a  sudden  ceased 
to  fill  your  ears,  and  in  the  place  of  it  a  still  small 
voice,  a  voice  both  of  kindness  and  of  authority,  stole 
in  upon  your  spiritual  senses,  saying,  "  What  I  do 
thou  knowest  not  now,  but  thou  shalt  know  here- 
after." 


IV. 


John  1,  29. — Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  which  taketh  away  the  ida 
of  the  world. 

How  long  our  first  parents  remained  innocent  is 
not  revealed,  and  cannot  be  conjectured.  The  space 
allotted  to  that  portion  of  their  history  in  God's  "Word 
is  extremely  small.  But  this  is  no  proof  that  the  time 
itself  was  short.  It  is  Bacon's  maxim  that  the  best 
times  to  live  in  are  the  worst  to  read  about,  {.  e., 
the  worst  for  entertainment  as  affording  least  variety 
of  incident.  Certain  it  is,  however,  that  we  scarcely 
enter  on  the  history  of  man  before  his  ruin  is  recorded. 
But  then,  upon  the  other  hand,  we  scarcely  read  of 
his  fall,  before  we  read  also  of  his  restoration.  The 
gates  of  Paradise  are  scarcely  closed,  before  the  altar 
of  atonement  is  erected  at  the  entrance.  The  flame 
of  the  cherubic  sword  is  blended  with  the  flame  of  the 
consuming  sacrifice,  Cain  was  a  tiller  of  the  ground. 
His  gentler  brother  was  a  slaughterer  of  animals. 
The  promise  of  salvation  to  lost  man  was  sealed  and 
symbolized  by  blood— not  the  blood  of  bears  and 
lions,  but  the  blood  of  sheep  and  oxen— not  of  vul- 
tures, but  of  turtle  doves.  Was  this  accidental  or  a 
mere  caprice  ?  Is  there  any  thing  even  in  man's 
fallen  nature  which  disposes  him  to  seek  the  death  of 


II 


JOHN  1,  29.  67 

brutes  for  its  own  sake,  witliout  any  view  to  food  or 
even  to  amusement  ?  And  is  this  propensity  so  doubly 
perverse  as  to  choose  the  harmless  and  the  unresisting 
as  its  victims,  rather  than  the  fierce  and  ravenous  ? 
If  not,  the  ancient  sacrifices  must  have  had  a  mean- 
ing ;  and  they  had,  for  they  were  meant  to  teach  by 
signs  and  emblems  the  essential  doctrine  that  without 
shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission — Blood  being 
put  for  life,  and  its  eft'iision  for  the  loss  of  life  by  me- 
taphors so  natural  as  scarcely  to  be  metaphors.  The 
lesson  taught  by  this  perpetual  spectacle  of  death, 
was  that  nothing  short  of  death  could  save  the  life 
which  man  had  forfeited  by  sin.  And  this  implied 
that  sin  incurred  a  penalty,  because  it  Avas  the  break- 
ing of  a  law,  and  that  the  penalty  of  this  law  could 
not  be  evaded  by  the  breaker,  or  by  him  who  gave  it. 
It  implied  that  the  distinction  between  moral  good  and 
evil  was  a  distinction  running  back  beyond  all  arbi- 
trary positive  enactments ;  that  the  righteousness  of 
God  made  it  impossible  that  sin  should  go  unpun- 
ished ;  and  that  as  the  sinner's  life  was  forfeit  on  ac- 
count of  sin,  that  forfeit  must  be  paid  by  the  sacrifice 
of  life. 

But  all  this  might  have  been  revealed  and  under- 
stood if  no  remedial  system  had  been  introduced  at 
all,  if  no  Saviour  had  been  promised. — There  was 
more  than  this  implied  in  the  ancient  rites  of  sacri- 
fice. They  taught  not  only  that  man  was  a  sinner, 
and  that  sin  must  be  punished,  but  what  seemed 
to  be  at  variance  with  these  truths,  that  sin  might 
be  forgiven  and  tlie  sinner  saved.  The  very  forms 
of  oblation  taught   this.     Of  these  forms   wc  have 


gg  SERMONS. 

110  exact  account  -ii  the  beginning  or  throughout  the 
patriarchal  age.  But  they  were  no  doubt  in  essential 
points  tlie  same  with  those  which  were  prescribed 
and  practised  in  the  law  of  Moses.  And  among  these 
there  was  one  too  clear  t(f  be  mistaken  if  regarded  as 
significant  at  all,  and  if  it  was  not,  the  whole  system 
became  merely  a  confused  array  of  vain  formali- 
ties. 

Imagine  that  you  see  the  host  of  Israel  gathered 
in  that  vast  enclosure,  with  the  altar  smoking  in  the 
midst,  and  by  it  the  anointed  priests  in  their  official 
vestments. — To  some,  perhaps  to  most,  in  the  sur- 
rounding multitude,  the  sight  is  a  mere  spectacle,  a 
raree-show  ;  but  there  were  never  wanting  some  who 
walked  by  faith  and  not  by  sight;  and  even  now, 
though  man  may  know  it  not,  there  beats  among  that 
breathless  crowd  some  heart  which  feels  the  burden 
of  its  sin  too  sensibly  to  be  content  with  outward 
show,  however  splendid.  It  sees,  it  wonders,  it  ad- 
mires, but  is  not  satisfied.  Its  language  is.  Oh  what  is 
this  to  me — how  much  of  that  oppressive  weight  Avhich 
crushes  me  can  this  imposing  spectacle  remove  or 
lighten  ?  But  the  crowd  divides.  The  offerer  ap- 
proaches with  his  victim.  Mild  and  dumb  it  stands, 
speechless  it  awaits  its  doom.  But  see !  before  the 
stroke  can  be  inflicted,  there  is  yet  a  solemn  rite  to  be 
performed.  The  offerer  must  first  lay  his  hands  upon 
the  head  of  the  poor  victim  and  confess  his  sins — a 
simple  rite,  but  full  of  solemn  import  to  the  mind  of 
the  spectator  burdened  with  a  sense  of  guilt  and 
taught  by  God  to  understand  the  sight  which  he  be- 
holds.    For  he  sees  that  in  that  simple  act  of  imposi- 


JOHN  1,  29,  69 

tion  the  believing  offerer  transfers  his  guilt,  and  in 
that  transfer  he  beholds  the  only  possible  alleviation 
of  his  own  distress.  If  the  whole  system  be  not 
merely  a  theatrical  display,  its  rites  must  be  signifi- 
cant ;  and  if  that  solemn  imposition  has  a  meaning,  it 
must  signify  a  transfer  of  the  curse  and  penalty  from 
one  head  to  another ;  and  if  such  a  transfer  be  con- 
ceivable in  one  case,  why  not  possible  in  all  ?  and 
if  in  all,  then  in  mine,  and  if  in  mine,  then  I  am  free. 
For,  all  I  ask  is  the  removal  of  this  burden  from  my 
conscience — I  care  not  whither  it  is  carried,  only  let 
it  pass  from  me. 

But  here  the  question  would  suggest  itself,  how 
can  the  guilt  of  my  sin  be  transferred  to  a  dumb  ani- 
mal ?  Can  sheep  or  oxen  bear  the  weight  of  my  iniq- 
uities, or  their  blood  cleanse  the  stains  which  sin  has 
left  upon  my  soul  ?  It  cannot  be.  The-  voice  of 
nature  and  of  reason  cries  aloud — It  is  not  possible. 
"  It  is  not  possible,  that  the  blood  of  bulls  or  of  goats 
should  take  away  sins,"  Heb.  x.  4.  And  yet  the 
voice  of  the  whole  system  cries  in  tones  of  equal 
strength,  that  "  without  the  shedding  of  blood  there  is 
no  remission."  How  shall  these  discordant  sounds 
be  tempered  into  unison?  How  shall  these  testi- 
monies, seemingly  so  opposite,  be  made  to  stand  to- 
gether ?  How  shall  the  burdened  soul  which  has  dis- 
covered that  its  only  hope  is  in  the  transfer  of  its  guilt, 
be  enabled  to  go  further  and  to  see  how  that  transfer 
may  be  really  effected  ?  Only  by  looking  far  beyond 
the  innocent  but  worthy  sacrifice  before  him  to 
another  tvhich  it  represents.  Only  by  seeing  in  its 
blood  the  symbol  of  a  blood  more  precious  than  silver 


ijTQ  SERMONS. 

and  gold,  a  blood  speaking  better  things  than  the 
blood  of  Abel ;  not  invoking  vengeance  but  proclaim- 
ing pardon,  as  it  streams  from  every  altar.  It  is  in- 
deed impossible  that  tlie  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats 
sbould  take  away  sin :  wherefore  when  He  cometh 
into  the  world  he  saith,  "  Sacrifice  and  offering  thou 
wouldest  not,  but  a  body  hast  thou  prepared  me.  In 
burnt  offerings  and  sacrifices  for  sin  thou  hast  had  no 
pleasure.  Tlien  said  I,  Lo  I  come,  in  the  volume  of 
the  book  it  is  written  of  me,  to  do  thy  will,  oh  God." 
Here  is  the  doctrine  of  sacrifice  expounded  by  the  Sacri- 
fice himself,  by  Him  who  is  at  once  the  great  atone- 
ment for  our  sins,  and  the  great  High  Priest  of  our  pro- 
fession. He  represented  the  death  of  animals  as  utterly 
without  intrinsic  efficacy  as  a  means  of  expiation,  and 
as  utterly  abominable  in  the  sight  of  God,  except  as  a 
symbolical  display  of  that  great  sacrifice  which  Christ 
offered  up  once  for  all  upon  the  Cross.  And  this  is 
the  doctrine  of  the  wliole  of  the  Old  Testament.  It 
furnishes  the  only  key  to  those  apparent  discrepancies 
which  have  been  observed  between  the  Law  and  the 
Pi'ophets,  where  the  latter  use  the  language  of  indif- 
ference, and  even  of  disapprobation,  with  respect  to 
duties  which  the  former  had  prescribed  and  rendered 
binding  by  the  most  tremendous  penalties.  In  Christ 
these  seeming  contradictions  are  all  reconciled.  That 
which  was  pleasing  in  the  sight  of  God  for  His  sake, 
was  abhorrent  when  considered  without  reference  to 
Him.  The  blood  of  bulls  and  goats  which,  as  a  sign 
of  his  blood,  speaketh  peace  to  the  perturbed  soul, 
that  same  blood,  in  itself  considered,  speaketh  ven- 
geance ;  for  it  speaks  of  cruelty,  and  murder,  and  un- 


JOHN  1,  29.  71 

expiated  guilt.  Tlie  faitli  of  old  believers  was  tlie 
same  as  ours,  only  darkened  and  imjDeded  by  tbe  use 
of  symbols  from  wliicli  we  liave  been  delivered  by  the 
advent  of  the  antitype. 

It  naturally  follows  from  this  difference  however, 
that  their  ideas  of  salvation  were  associated  witli  a 
class  of  images  quite  different  from  those  which  in 
our  minds  are  connected  with  that  great  and  glorious 
doctrine.  "Where  we  speak  of  the  cross,  the  ancients 
spoke  of  the  altar ;  and  where  we  speak  directly  of 
the  great  atoning  sacrifice  by  which  our  life  is  pur- 
chased, they  would,  of  course,  use  expressions  bor- 
rowed from  the  rites  by  wdiicli  he  was  to  them  pre- 
figured, and  especially  from  those  appointed  animals 
by  whose  death  his  was  represented.  And  among 
these  the  one  most  commonly  employed  for  this  end 
was  the  lamb ;  partly  because  it  was  more  used  in 
sacrifice  than  any  other,  partly  because  of  its  intrinsic 
qualities,  which  made  it,  more  than  any  other  animal, 
an  apt  though  most  imperfect  emblem  of  the  Great 
Redeemer,  as  an  innocent,  uncomplaining,  unresisting 
victim.  l!Tor  are  these  two  reasons  to  be  looked  upon 
as  wholly  distinct  from  one  another.  The  selection  of 
the  lamb  for  the  perpetual  burnt-offering,  besides  its 
frequent  use  in  other  sacrifices,  is  to  be  explained 
from  its  peculiar  fitness  as  an  emblem  of  the  Saviour. 
It  was  because  he  was  a  lamb  without  blemish,  and 
because  he  was  to  suffer  as  a  lamb  led  to  the  slaugh- 
ter ;  it  was  therefore  that  this  victim  was  so  promi- 
nent an  object  in  the  sacrificial  system.  And  because 
it  was  so  prominent  not  only  in  the  ordinary  rites,  but 
in  the  solemn  yearly  service  of  the  passover,  it  nat- 


72  SERMONS. 

urally  followed  that  the  lamb  became  the  favourite 
and  most  familiar  symbol  of  atonement,  and  of  him 
by  whom  it  was  to  be  effected. 

Tlie  image  which  spontaneously  arose  before  the 
mind  of  the  devout  Jew  in  connexion  with  his  dear- 
est hopes  of  pardon  and  salvation,  was  the  image 
of  a  lamb,  a  bleeding  lamb,  a  lamb  without  blemish 
and  without  spot,  a  lamb  slain  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world.  We  have  no  means  of  determining  how 
far  the  doctrine  of  atonement  was  maintained  without 
corruption  in  the  age  immediately  preceding  the  ap- 
pearance of  our  Lord.  But  we  have  strong  ground 
for  believing  that  the  great  mass  of  the  people  had 
lost  sight  of  it,  and  as  a  necessary  consequence,  had 
ceased  to  look  upon  the  rites  of  the  Mosaic  law  as 
meaning  what  they  did  mean.  It  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed, however,  that  this  loss  of  the  true  doctrine  had 
become  universal.  The  sense  of  guilt  and  of  necessity 
could  not  be  universally  destroyed,  and  while  it  lasted, 
it  could  not  fail  to  lead  some  whose  hearts  were  bur- 
dened with  it  to  a  promised  Saviour.  Some  at  least 
who  felt  their  lost  and  wretched  state  still  looked  with 
a  prospective  faith  to  the  coming  and  the  dying  of  the 
Lamb  of  God.  Some  at  least,  amidst  the  sorrows 
which  they  witnessed  or  endured,  were  waiting  for 
the  consolation  of  Israel.  Some  at  least,  beneath  the 
chains  and  yoke  of  that  hard  bondage  under  which 
they  groaned,  still  looked  for  redemption  in  Jerusa- 
lem. The  hopes  of  such  were  naturally  stimulated 
by  the  appearance  of  John  the  Baptist.  But  he  did 
not  satisfy -their  expectations.  He  was  a  preacher  of 
righteousness,  but  not  a  sacrifice  for  sin.     He  was  a 


JOHN  1,  29.  Y3 

prophet  and  a  priest,  but  not  a  sacrifice.  He  taught 
his  disciples,  it  is  true,  to  look  with  stronger  confi- 
dence than  ever  for  the  coming  of  the  Great  Deliv- 
erer ;  and  wlien  their  desires  had  been  excited  to  the 
utmost  he  revealed  their  object ;  when  their  sense  of 
guilt  and  of  the  need  of  expiation  had  been  strength- 
ened to  the  utmost  by  his  preaching  of  the  law,  and 
they  were  thoroughly  convinced  that  no  act  of  their 
own  could  take  away  their  sins,  he  led  them  at  last 
to  the  altar  and  the  sacrifice,  and  said,  "  Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God,  which  taketli  away  the  sin  of  the 
world." 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  two  to  whom  these 
words  were  specially  addressed,  no  sooner  heard  them 
than  they  followed  Jesus  and  continued  with  him  ;  a 
sufiicient  proof  that  they  were  waiting  for  him  and 
prepared  for  his  reception.  But  in  what  did  their 
preparation  consist  ?  Not  in  personal  merit ;  they 
were  miserable  sinners.  'Not  in  superior  wisdom  ; 
they  were  fishermen.  In  one  point,  it  is  true,  they 
were  peculiarly  cnliglitened,  and  in  that  consists  their 
peculiar  preparation  to  receive  the  Saviour.  They 
knew  that  they  were  lost,  and  that  he  alone  could  save 
them:  so  that  when  their  former  master  said,  "Be- 
hold the  Lamb  of  God,"  they  followed  him  at  once. 
And  so  it  has  been  ever  since.  The  rich  and  power- 
ful, the  wise  and  learned,  although  not  excluded  from 
the  face  of  God,  are  often  last  in  coming  to  the  Sav- 
iour, because  accidental  circumstances  blind  them  to 
their  true  condition,  while  the  poor  and  ignorant,  be- 
cause they  feel  that  they  have  nothing  to  be  proud  of, 
in  their  personal  character  or  outward  situation,  are 

VOL.  I. — 4 


74  SERMONS, 

more  easily  convinced  that  tliey  are  in  a  state  of  spir- 
itual destitution,  and  more  easily  persuaded  to  employ 
the  only  means  by  which  their  wants  can  be  supplied- 
But  when  this  conviction  and  persuasion  is  effected, 
in  Avhatever  class  or  condition  of  society,  its  causes 
and  effects  are  still  essentially  the  same  ;  its  cause  the 
grace  of  God,  and  its  effect  a  believing  application 
to  the  Lamb  of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world.  In  all  such  cases,  the  same  kind  of  preparation 
for  the  Saviour  must  exist  as  in  the  case-  of  John's 
disciples  ;  a  conviction  of  the  sinner's  need  and  of  the 
Saviour's  being  able  to  supply  it ;  and  where  this 
does  exist,  no  conceivable  amount  of  guilt  or  igno- 
rance or  weakness  can  disable  or  disqualify. 

My  hearers,  are  not  you  possessed  of  this  essen- 
tial requisite  ?  I  know  that  you  are  sinners,  but  I 
know  not  that  you  feel  it.  I  know  that  Christ  is  a 
sufficient  Saviour,  but  I  do  not  know  that  you  have 
seen  him  to  be  such.  If  you  have,  or  if  amidst  this 
large  assembly  there  are  any  upon  whom  the  load  of 
conscious  guilt  is  pressing  at  this  moment  with  a 
weight  which  seems  incapable  of  being  longer  borne, 
and  whoso  most  urgent  want  is  that  of  something 
which  'will  take  away  their  sin  ;  to  them  I  would  ad- 
dress myself,  and  pointing,  as  the  Baptist  did,  to 
Christ,  say  to  you,  as  he  said  to  his  two  disciples, 
"  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  Avhicli  taketh  away  the 
sin  of  the  world."  But  why  should  I  restrict  the 
declaration  ?  It  admits  of  universal  application. 
Tliere  is  no  one,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  in  the 
scale  of  morals,  whom  I  may  not  summon  to  behold 
the  Lamb  of  God.    Have  you  repented  and  believed  ? 


JOHX  1,  29.  Y5 

If  you  have,  I  need  not  tell  you  that  you  are  a  sinner. 
The  more  you  are  delivered  from  corruption,  the  more 
deeply  will  you  feel  the  power  which  it  still  exerts 
upon  you.  Do  you  never  sin  ?  And  have  the  sins 
of  Christians  no  peculiar  aggravation.  Is  your  con- 
science never  stained  and  never  wounded  by  trans- 
gression ?  And  to  whom  do  you  resort  for  reassur- 
ance when  it  is  so  ?  To  your  own  religious  duties  ? 
To  your  sighs  and  tears  ?  To  the  beggarly  element 
of  legal  righteousness  from  which  you  were  delivered  ? 
"  Have  ye  suffered  so  many  things  in  vain  ?  if  it  be 
yet  in  vain  ?  Are  ye  so  foolish  ?  having  begun  in  the 
Spirit,  are  ye  now  made  perfect  by  the  flesh  ?  This 
only  would  I  learn  of  you,  received  ye  the  Spii-it  by 
the  works  of  the  law  or  by  the  hearing  of  faith  ?  Oh 
foolish  souls,  who  hath  bewitched  you,  that  ye  should 
not  obey  the  truth,  before  whose  eyes  Jesus  Christ 
hath  been  evidently  set  forth,  crucified  among  you." 
Tour  first  hope  and  your  last  hope  must  be  still  the 
same.  To  you,  as  well  as  to  the  sinner  who  has  never 
been  converted,  the  same  voice  is  crying :  "  Behold 
the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world ; "  of  the  world,  not  merely  of  the  Jewish  nation, 
not  merely  of  this  class  or  that,  but  of  the  world. 
There  is  peculiar  pregnancy  and  depth  in  this  expres- 
sion which  means  both  to  take  wp  and  to  take  away. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  according  to  the  Scrip- 
tures Christ  did  really  assume  and  bear  the  sins  of 
those  for  whom  he  died.  "  Surely  he  hath  borne  our 
griefs,  and  carried  our  sorrows."  "  He  was  wounded 
for  our  transgressions,  he  was  bruised  for  our  iniqui- 
ties, the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him,  and 


76  SERMONS. 

with  liis  stripes  we  are  healed.  The  Lord  laid  on  Mm 
the  iniquity  of  us  all."  "  He  shall  justify  many,  for 
he  shall  bear  their  iniquity."  "  He  was  numbered 
with  the  transgressors,  and  he  bare  the  sin  of  ii  any." 
These  strong  expressions,  all  contained  in  one  short 
chapter,  do  but  sum  up  the  Bible  doctrine  that  our 
Saviour  took  the  sinner's  j)lace,  paid  his  debt,  bore 
his  burden,  and  endured  his  punishment.  But  it  is 
equally  clear  that  the  idea  of  removing  or  of  taking 
away,  as  well  as  taking  up,  is  really  included  in  the 
import  of  the  term  here  used.  Indeed  the  two  things 
go  together.  It  is  by  bearing  sin  that  Christ  removes 
it.  It  is  by  taking  it  up  that  he  takes  it  away.  It  is 
the  Lamb  of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world.  While  we  really  recognize  the  truth  that 
Christ  atones  for  sin  by  suffering  its  penalty,  we 
ought  not  to  forget  the  other  meaning  of  the  word 
used,  as  implying  that  he  frees  the  world  from  sin  and 
from  its  consequences.  This  is  the  end  at  which 
philanthropists  are  aiming.  So  far  as  they  are  really 
enlightened,  they  are  well  aware  that  all  the  evils 
which  they  try  to  remedy  are  caused  by  sin.  And 
hence  their  great  end  is,  or  ought  to  be,  to  take  away 
the  sin  of  the  M'orld.  But  in  using  secondary  means 
for  the  accomplishment  of  this  great  purpose,  they  are 
too  apt  to  forget  that  which  is  primary,  and  from 
which  all  the  rest  derive  their  efficacy.  Even  wise 
and  good  men  in  their  zealous  efforts  to  extirpate  sin 
and  misery  for  ever  from  the  world,  may  forget  that 
this  can  never  be  effected  without  some  means  of 
atonement ;  that  there  never  can  be  reformation 
where  there  is  no  expiation,  or  in  other  words,  that 


1 


JOHN  1,  29.  f^fj 

it  is  Clirist's  prerogative  to  do  both  parts  of  this  great 
work ;  that  he  is  the  Lamb  of  God  who  in  both  senses 
takes  away  the  sin  of  the  world. 

But  while  this  view  of  the  matter  shows  lis  why- 
some  plans  for  the  improvement  of  mankind  have 
been  without  success,  it  ought,  at  the  same  time,  to 
encourage  us  to  hope  for  the  success  of  others,  and 
especially  for  that  of  the  great  means  of  reformation 
which  has  been  ordained  of  God,  and  without  which 
every  other  must  be  ultimately  vain,  viz.,  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Gospel.  Are  we  painfully  affected  by  the 
sight  of  a  surrounding  world  lying  in  wickedness  ? 
And  does  this  view  excite  us  not  to  lamentation 
merely,  but  to  active  effort  for  the  universal  renova- 
tion of  society  ?  All  this  is  well ;  but  our  desires 
may  so  far  transcend  our  own  capacity  and  that  of 
other  instruments  which  we  employ,  that  we  may 
sink  into  despondency.  But  here  we  have  the  anti- 
dote to  such  despair.  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which 
taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world. 

The  same  use  may  be  made  of  this  great  doctrine 
in  relation  to  the  evils  which  exist  in  a  particular  com- 
munity. Tlie  human  heart  is  everywhere  the  same, 
and  if  abandoned  to  itself  without  restraint,  would 
yield  in  every  place,  and  always,  the  harvest  of  corrup- 
tion and  of  misery.  But  even  the  worst  men  arc 
under  strong  restraints  imposed  by  Providence.  And 
these  restraints  are  so  diversified  and  interwoven  that 
they  cannot  be  successfully  controlled  by  man.  His 
wisdom  and  his  power  are  alike  inadequate  to  such 
a  task.  Legal  restraints  and  obligations  are  indeed 
within  the  reach  of  human  governments,  and  consti- 


78  SERIIONS. 

tiite  their  most  important  office.  But  i:.>ese  clieeta 
are  only  one  part,  and  a  small  part  of  that  vast  and 
complicated  system  of  control,  which  holds  the  malig- 
nity of  human  nature  under  a  pressure  strong  enougli 
to  save  society  from  utter  dissolution.  The  external 
checks  of  law,  moreover,  useful  as  they  are,  not  only 
constitute  a  small  part  of  the  system  of  coercion  under 
which  we  live,  but  are  themselves  dependent  for  their 
whole  eiFect  upon  the  moral  bonds  and  ligaments  of 
which  no  laws  take  cognizance,  and  which  are  utterly 
beyond  the  reach  of  all  municipal  provision.  They 
are  in  the  hands  of  God,  and  he  relaxes  or  contracts 
them  at  liis  sovereign  pleasure.  And  it  certainly 
is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  matter  of  surprise  that  in 
this,  as  in  all  other  parts  of  his  omnipotent  and  wise 
administration,  his  counsels  are  inscrutable,  and  even 
the  principles  on  which  they  are  conducted  such,  as 
often  to  elude  our  most  sagacious  observation.  Xow 
and  then  the  reins  by  which  he  holds  the  hearts  and 
hands  of  men  in  check  appear  to  be  relaxed,  in  order 
to  exhibit  human  nature  as  it  would  be  if  abandoned 
to  itself.  This  effect  is  sometimes  answered  by  indi- 
vidual cases  of  depravity  ;  by  the  commission  of  ap- 
palling crimes  for  which  it  seems  impossible  to  find  a 
motive.  Such  cases  now  and  tlien  occur  in  the  heart 
of  the  most  peaceable  commimities,  where  much  re- 
ligious knowledge  is  enjoyed,  and  where  the  provi- 
dential checks  upon  depravity  appear  to  be  most 
uniform  and  powerful.  In  such  states  of  society,  ex- 
traordinary instances  of  crime  have  sometimes  fallen 
suddenly  upon  the  public  ear,  like  thunder  in  a  cloud- 
less sky.    All  eyes  are  riveted,  all  thoughts  absorbed, 


JOHN  1,  29.  79 

and  for  a  time  the  heart  of  the  coirmiinity  aj^pears  to 
beat  like  that  of  one  man,  so  coincident  and  nniform 
are  its  pulsations.  Out  of  such  events  the  providence 
and  grace  of  God  may  bring  the  most  beneficent  ef- 
fects ;  but  such  effects  can  never  be  secured  by  man's 
sagacity  or  goodness.  Such  is  the  wayward  incon- 
sistency of  human  nature,  that  the  very  action  which 
electrifies  with  horror  may  incite  to  imitation,  or  at 
least  to  the  commission  of  analogous  offences.  Ay, 
and  even  among  those  who  are  seciire  from  any  such 
extreme  effect,  there  is  a  dangerous  illusion  which 
may  easily  exist.  Among  the  multitudes  who  stand 
aghast  at  insulated  instances  of  awful  crime,  there 
may  be  many  who  are  not  at  all  aware  that  they  are 
daily  treating  with  contempt  the  very  motives  and 
restraints  which,  in  the  case  before  them,  God  has 
wisely  but  mysteriously  suffered  to  be  powerless.  He 
who  despises  in  his  ordinary  practice  the  distinction 
between  moral  good  and  evil,  has  comparatively  little 
right  to  wonder  even  at  those  acts  of  hellish  malice 
which  mi<rht  almost  seem  to  indicate  an  incarnation 
of  the  principle  of  evil  in  tlie  being  who  commits 
them. 

But  another  error  which  luay  easily  arise  in  such 
a  case,  is  the  error  of  supposing  that  these  fearful  re- 
laxations of  the  usual  restraint  upon  men's  actions, 
take  place  only  in  the  case  of  individuals.  Alas,  my 
hearers,  it  is  frequently  exemplified  in  whole  com- 
munities, not  by  the  prevalence  of  such  extreme  de- 
pravity as  that  referred  to,  which  would  be  wholly 
incompatible  with  any  form  of  social  order ;  but  by 
a  general  sinking  of  the  tone  of  public  sentiment,  a 


go  SERMONS. 

growing  insensibilit}^  to  moral  and  religious  motivea. 
a  gradual  or  sudden  dereliction  of  established  rules  of 
order  and  decorum  ;  a  progressive  diminution  of  tlie 
popular  respect  for  age  and  elevated  character ;  a 
sensible  decay  of  that  ingenuous  shame  which  is  at 
once  the  safeguard  and  ihe  charm  of  youth ;  in  cre- 
ating boldness  on  the  part  of  crime,  and  a  proportion- 
ate increase  of  timid  caution  on  the  part  of  those 
whose  work  is  to  suppress  it ;  increase  of  influence  in 
those  whose  influence  is  all  for  evil,  and  an  ominous 
precocity  of  vice  in  youth,  portending  that  without 
the  fear  of  God  preventing  it,  the  next  generation 
will  be  worse  than  this.  Is  this  a  fancy  picture? 
Have  you  never  seen  its  counterpart  in  real  life? 
Have  yoLi  never  even  heard  of  such  changes  taking 
place  amidst  the  most  unusual  advantages,  and  with 
an  impetus  so  fearful  that  the  general  complexion  of 
society  was  quickly  changed,  the  seat  of  order  and 
morality  becoming  in  a  few  years  the  abode  of  wick- 
edness which  cannot  blush,  and,  I  had  almost  said, 
the  house  of  prayer  transformed  into  a  den  of  thieves  ? 
Such  changes  have  been  and,  for  aught  I  know,  they 
may  be  passing  now.  The  question  is  not  whether 
they  are  possible,  but  whether  they  can  be  pre- 
vented. 

In  a  community  which  shows  some  symptoms  of 
this  fatal  process,  what  shall  the  friends  of  human 
happiness  attempt  in  opposition  to  its  progress  ?  Shall 
they  aim  their  blows  at  certain  special  evils,  inde- 
pendent of  each  other,  except  so  far  as  all  sins  are 
committed,  and  attempt  their  extirpation?  In  all 
such  cases  there  are  some  specific  reformations  which 


JOHN  1,  29.  81 

must  be  effected.  There  are  social  nuisances  wMcb 
ought  to  be  abated.  Tliere  are  fountains  of  corrup- 
tion, some  of  which  are  capable  of  being  cleansed  by 
the  infusion  of  divine  salt :  others  set  purgation  at 
defiance,  and  can  only  be  exhausted,  choked,  or  ren- 
dered inaccessible.  But  while  these  specific  remedies 
may  be  imperatively  needed,  they  can  never  be  sufti- 
cient  of  themselves.  It  matters  not  how  many  foun- 
tains of  external  vice  are  dried  and  stopped,  unless  a 
fountain  be  opened  for  sin  and  uncleanness.  It  mat- 
ters not  how  many  voices  cry  aloud  in  warning  to  the 
drunkard  and  the  libertine,  the  gambler  and  the  thief, 
exhorting  them  to  put  away  their  sins  by  righteous- 
ness, unless  among  them  some  voice  cry  to  all  without 
exception,  and  without  cessation,  "Behold  the  Lamb  of 
God  wliich  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  But 
between  these  methods  tliere  is  no  contrariety  or  disa- 
greement. Both  are  but  parts  of  one  harmonious  whole. 
It  is  only  by  attempting  to  divorce  them  that  the  one 
becomes  inefiectual  if  not  pernicious ;  let  them  be  com- 
bined, and  let  the  same  voice  which  exhorts  men  to 
beware  of  those  sins  which  most  easily  beset  them,  let 
the  same  voice  continually,  earaestly  invite  them  to 
behold  the  Lamb  of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sin 
of  the  world.  I  know  that  by  many  he  will  be  de- 
spised ;  but  if  this  Avere  any  reason  for  withholding 
the  offers  of  the  gospel,  its  glad  sound  would  long 
since  have  been  hushed.  One  of  the  marks  by  which 
he  was  identified  in  prophecy  is  this :  "  despised  and 
rejected  of  men,"  and  you  will  bear  me  witness  that 
in  this  point  the  offence  of  the  cross  has  not  ceased. 
And  let  us  bear  in  mind  that  man's  natural  condition 
VUL,  I. — 4* 


82  SERMONS. 

is  a  state  of  illusion,  extending  to  tlie  most  flnportant 
objects,  and  indeed  becoming  more  profound  with  tlie 
importance  of  the  object ;  that  one  of  the  most  natural 
effects  of  this  illusion  is  to  vitiate  his  estimate  of 
things  and  persons,  so  that  he  highly  esteems  that 
which  is  abominable  in  tjie  sight  of  God,  and  on  the 
contrary,  despises  precisely  what  he  ought  to  love  and 
reverence.  Under  the  influence  of  this  illusion  he  can 
despise  his  own  best  interest  for  time  and  for  eternity. 
He  can  despise  the  correct  public  sentiment  by  which 
he  is  condemned.  He  can  despise  the  hopes  and  fears 
and  affectionate  solicitude  of  friends  aiid  kindred. 
He  can  despise  a  father's  counsels  and  a  mother's 
tears.  He  can  despise  the  very  fundamental  princi- 
ples of  morals  both  in  theory  and  practice.  He  can 
despise  the  law  of  God.  He  can  despise  the  means 
of  grace.  He  can  despise  the  gospel.  So  profound 
is  the  illusion  which  produces  this  contempt,  that  he 
can  even  despise  things  while  he  thinks  he  hon- 
ours them.  The  man  who  patronizes  Christ  and  his 
religion,  who  allows  the  church  a  place  among  his 
sources  of  amusement,  and  permits  the  Bible  to  al- 
ternate sometimes  with  his  play -books  and  romances, 
who  admits  in  words  that  religion  is  a  good  thing, 
and  intimates  his  willingness  to  show  it  countenance  ; 
the  man  who  does  this  may  imagine  that  he  really 
respects  religion,  but,  if  ever  he  is  brought  to  see 
himself  as  a  contemptible  worm  of  the  dust,  a  lost 
and  ruined  sinner,  whose  only  hope  is  in  the  very 
gosj)el  which  he  thus  condescends  to  take  under  his 
protection,  he  will  also  see  that  while  he  thought  he 
did  it  reverence  he  really  despised  it.     And  to  crown 


JOHN  1,  29.  83 

the  whole,  he  can  despise  the  cross.  He  can  despise 
the  Saviour.  He  can  despise  the  groans  of  Getli- 
semane  and  Golgotha.  And  shall  he  who  thus  de- 
spises the  moet  glorious  and  precious  of  all  objects  in 
the  universe,  be  still  pursued  with  invitations  to  be- 
hold the  Lamb  of  God  whom  he  despises  ?  Yes,  it 
must  be  so.  Our  Lord  himself  upon  the  cross  not 
only  prayed  for  the  forgiveness  of  his  murderers,  but 
by  his  outstretched  limbs  and  streaming  wounds  said 
to  all  who  passed  by,  in  tones  more  audible  than  lan- 
guage, "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God." 

His  servants  dare  not  be  less  patient  than  himself. 
They  must  pursue  the  most  inveterate  despiser  of  the 
gospel  with  the  same  importunate  and  agonizing  cry. 
Behold,  behold  the  Lamb  of  God.  Let  that  call  follow 
him  wherever  he  may  hide  himself.  Let  that  call  reach 
him  at  his  table  and  his  fireside,  in  his  closet  and  his 
chamber,  in  his  place  of  business  and  his  haunts  of  dis- 
sipation. Let  it  mingle  with  his  music  and  his  jovial 
laughter.  Let  the  rattling  of  his  dice-box  and  the  chink 
of  his  dishonest  gains  be  still  drowned  by  the  echo  of 
that  distant  cry,  Behold !  Behold !  And  though  he  still 
continue  to  despise  it  while  he  lives,  let  it  ring  in  his 
ears  upon  his  dying  bed,  and  let  the  last  look  of  his 
fading  eye  be  invited  to  the  cross  by  that  same  word 
Behold  !  Behold  !  and  though  he  die  despising  it,  he 
shall  not  cease  to  hear  it,  for  that  word  shall  still  ring 
in  his  ears  when  his  illusions  are  dispelled  forever ; 
when  his  soul,  before  it  takes  its  final  plunge,  shall  see 
the  objects  which  it  once  despised  arrayed  in  all  their 
excellence  and  glory,  and  in  spite  of  its  endeavours 
to  avert  its  gaze,  shall  be  compelled  to  see  them  as  it 


84: 


SERMONS. 


would  not  see  tliem  here ;  then,  then  shall  that  de- 
spised call  be  the  last  sound  that  strikes  upon  his 
failing  sense,  Behold  the  La:mu  of  God  that  taxeth 

AWAY  THE  Sm  OF  THE  WOKLD. 


V. 


Romans   1,  25. — They  worshipped  and  served  the  creature  more 
than  the  Creator. 

There  is  no  fact  in  the  history  of  the  ancient  Jews 
more  certain  or  familiar  than  their  constant  propen- 
sity to  lapse  into  idolatry.  The  particular  form  of  the 
transgression  was  dependent  ni3on  variable  circum- 
stances, time,  place,  foreign  associations,  special  op- 
portunities ;  but  still  it  was  idolatry,  the  worship  of 
false  gods,  to  which  they  w^ere  continually  tempted, 
and  into  which  they  were  continually  falling,  their 
grand  national  offence,  by  which  the  dark  side  of  their 
history  is  uniformly  characterized.  Their  periods  of 
corruption  were  all  periods  of  idolatry,  their  worst 
men  were  idolaters ;  this  was  the  standing  form  in 
which  their  national  and  individual  depravity  con- 
tinually showed  itself.  Their  unlawful  alliances  with 
foreign  powers  were  almost  invariably  complicated 
with  participation  in  their  idol- worship.  The  occult 
arts  which  they  are  charged  with  practising,  were 
mere  appendages  of  that  same  worship.  In  a  word, 
so  far  as  they  are  said  to  be  corrupt  at  all,  it  is  in  this 
way  more  conspicuously  and  constantly  than  any 
other.     The  sin  of  ancient  Israel  was  idolatry.     Tho 


86  SERMONS. 

sinners  of  ancient  Israel  were  idolaters.  A  every 
recorded  deviation  from  the  service  of  Jehovah,  we 
come  at  the  first  turn  to  an  altar  or  an  image  whether 
of  Baal,  Ashtoreth,  or  Moloch. 

This  fact,  however,  would  be  less  surprising  when 
taken  in  connection  with  the  universal  prevalence  of 
idolatry  around  them,  were  it  not  for  another  equally 
certain  and  familiar  which  their  history  presents  as 
the  counterpart  of  this  one.  I  refer  to  the  fact,  that 
after  a  certain  crisis  in  their  history  this  stigma  is 
obKterated.  Since  the  return  from  Babylon,  the  Jews, 
as  a  community,  have  never  been  reproached  with 
any  tendency  to  idol  worship.  Amidst  all  the  cor- 
ruption which  existed  in  the  later  periods  of  their 
history  as  a  people  in  their  own  land,  amidst  all  their 
persecutions  and  dispersions  since,  they  have  held 
fast  their  integrity  in  this  respect.  "While  a  large 
part  of  the  Christian  world  has  resumed  the  form 
if  not  the  substance  of  idolatrous  worship,  the  de- 
spised and  scattered  Jews  have  still  borne  witness 
against  their  defection.  In  this  the  reformed  churches 
now  nnite  with  them — so,  likewise,  do  the  Moham- 
medans. Among  the  modern  Jews  and  Moslems, 
and  in  Protestant  Christendom,  the  lea-st  appearance 
of  idolatry  is  reckoned  a  sure  symptom  of  corruption. 

This  extraordinary  contrast  very  naturally  prompts 
the  question,  how  and  why  is  it  so  ?  What  has  be- 
come of  the  idolatrous  propensity  which  once  ap- 
peared inseparable  from  the  corruptions  of  the  human 
heart  ?  How  is  it  that  whenever  ancient  Israel  went 
astray  from  God,  they  went  astray  in  this  direction, 
and  that  now  even  the  most  impious  never  seem  to 


I 


ROMANS  1,  23.  87 

take  it  either  by  accident  or  choice?  If  it  be  said 
that  tlie  continued  existence  of  the  same  propensity 
appears  in  the  idolatrous  cormptions  of  the  Romish 
and  the  Oriental  chnrches,  this  affords  no  adequate 
solution  of  the  difficulty ;  first,  because  the  abuses  in 
question  admit  of  a  different  explanation,  or  may  at 
least  be  traced  to  a  very  different  origin,  but  second- 
ly and  chiefly,  because  it  either  takes  for  granted  that 
the  whole  amount  of  human  corruption  is  now  shut 
up  in  these  churches,  or  else  leaves  us  still  without  an 
explanation  of  the  fact,  that  the  corruption  which 
exists  among  ourselves  never  takes  this  form.  Leav- 
ing entirely  out  of  view  the  worship  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  and  of  saints  and  images  in  other  parts  of 
Christendom,  how  is  it  that  among  ourselves  the  same 
propensity  is  now  extinct,  although  the  general  corrup- 
tion of  the  heart  and  of  society  is  still  so  great  ?  Among 
our  many  crying  sins,  why  is  there  no  idolatry? 
Among  our  flagrant  sinners,  no  idolaters  ?  There 
might  be  less  cause  to  propound  this  question,  if  a 
corresponding  change  had  taken  ])lace  among  the 
heathen ;  if  their  false  religions  had  been  gradually 
passing  into  new  forms,  we  might  then  regard  the 
change  among  ourselves  as  part  of  a  great  alterative 
process,  to  which  the  whole  race  had  alike  been  sub- 
jected. But  it  is  not  so.  The  hundreds  of  millions 
of  the  heathen  world  are  as  idolatrous  as  ever.  The 
stupendous  revolutions  which  have  shaken  the  whole 
structure  of  their  civil  constitutions,  or  resolved  socie- 
ty into  its  elements  and  wrought  them  into  new  com- 
binations, have  still  left  their  images  and  altars  stand- 
ing where  they  stood  before  !     How  is  it  then,  the 


88  SERMONS. 

question  still  returns,  that  in  our  catal  Jgue  of  sins  we 
now  find  no  idolatry  ?  Is  it  because  we  are  too  civ- 
ilized ?  But  if  by  this  we  mean  a  higher  degree  of 
intellectual  refinement  and  extreme  cultivation  of  the 
taste,  we  have  only  to  remember  Greece,  to  look  at 
Athens,  with  all  the  learning  and  refinement  of  the 
world  concentrated  in  her  schools  and  works  of  art, 
yet  blended,  even  there,  with  the  insignia  of  idola- 
try, her  sages  teaching  wisdom  in  the  portico  of  idol 
temples,  her  artists  vying  with  each  other  in  the 
decoration  of  her  images  and  altars.  Or  is  it  civil 
and  political  wisdom,  military  force,  and  practical  sa- 
gacity, that  furnishes  the  key  to  this  remarkable 
phenomenon  ?  Then  look  at  Rome,  and  see  how  far 
her  arms  and  laws  produced  the  same  effect.  Ascend 
the  Capitoline  hill,  as  you  before  climbed  the  Acropo- 
lis, or  enter  the  Pantheon  as  you  visited  the  Parthe- 
non. Survey  the  ruined  temples  which  enclose  the 
area  of  the  ancient  Forum,  and  then  separate,  if  you 
can,  even  in  imagination,  the  Roman  idolatry  from 
the  Roman  greatness. 

Again,  if  the  difference  be  ascribed  to  the  moral 
elevation  of  our  social  state  above  that  of  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  even  in  their  palmiest  days,  the  reason 
is  fallacious,  as  it  mistakes  the  cause  for  the  effect. 
In  cultivation  of  mere  taste  and  intellect,  we  certainly 
have  no  advantage  over  those  ancients  whom  we  still 
acknowledge  as  our  models  and  onr  oracles;  so  the 
moral  superiority  which  constitutes  the  difference  in 
our  favour  is  itself  the  fruit  of  Christianity,  and  can- 
not therefore  be  the  reason  why  Christianity,  at  least 
within  the  chosen  sphere  of  our  inquiry,  is  so  free 


I 


ROMANS  1,  25.  89 

rom  idolatrous  admixtures;  why  tlie  unrenewed  who 
bear  the  Christian  name,  though  unacquainted  witt 
the  power  of  divine  truth,  do  not  fall  into  idolatry. 

Since  none  of  the  solutions  which  have  been  sug- 
gested, seem  sufficient  to  account  for  this  remarkable 
difference  of  the  forms  in  which  depravity  and  oppo- 
sition to  the  truth  have  shown  themselves  at  different 
times  ;  since  it  seems  so  hard  to  explain  why  idolatry 
is  now  so  rare  or  utterly  unknown  among  ourselves, 
it  may  not  be  without  its  use  to  look  for  a  moment  at 
the  question  in  another  form,  and  to  inquire  whether, 
after  all,  our  religion  or  our  irreligion  is  so  free  from 
the  idolatrous  element  as  we  have  hitherto  supposed ; 
and  if  not,  what  are  the  appearances  which  bear  the 
most  resemblance  to  the  false  religions  of  the  ancient 
world.  In  order  to  do  this  without  confusion,  or  with 
any  satisfactory  result,  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider 
and  determine  what  we  mean  by  idolatry.  We  must, 
of  course,  reject  the  definition  founded  on  the  etymol- 
ogy of  the  word  itself,  which  would  restrict  it  to  the 
worship  of  material  images.  Then  they  who  adored 
the  sun  and  moon,  and  all  the  host  of  heaven,  were 
no  idolaters.  They  who  invoked  the  winds,  and 
bowed  down  at  the  fountain-head  of  streams,  and 
whispered  their  devotions  to  the  air,  and  called  upon 
the  overhanging  mountains  to  protect  them,  are  ex- 
cluded from  the  catalogue.  How  large  a  part  of  the 
classical  mythology  would  thus  be  shut  out? — nay, 
how  large  a  part  of  the  idolatry  which  even  now  ex- 
ists among  nations  less  refined  and  civilized  ?  The 
idolatry  of  which  we  are  in  search,  then,  is  not  simply 
the   external  worship  of  material  images,  of  stocks 


90  SERMONS. 

and  stones,  thongli  this  may  be  c(  nsidtred  its  mos^t 
palpable  and  grossest  exhibition.  On  the  other  hand, 
idolatry  is  not  to  be  resolved  into  a  purely  spiritual 
act,  the  preference  of  some  other  supreme  object  of 
affection  to  our  Maker. 

This,  though  the  soul  of  all  idolatry,  is  not  the 
whole  of  it.  This  subtle  essence  of  the  sin  exists  now 
just  as  much  as  in  ancient  times;  just  as  much  in 
one  kind  of  irreligion  as  another.  Covetousness  is 
idolatry,  but  idolatry  is  not  covetousness.  It  is  not 
the  mere  rejection  or  neglect  of  God  as  the  object  of 
our  worship,  but  the  religious  preference  of  something 
else.  Of  what?  "What  was  there  common  to  the 
false  religions  of  the  old  world,  giving  them  a  com- 
mon character  ?  jSTot  image  worship,  in  the  strict  sense 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  far  from  being  universal. 
Much  less  the  form,  or  name,  or  legendary- history  of 
the  idol,  or  the  attributes  ascribed  to  it ;  for  these  were 
indefinitely  various.  What  then?  What  was  it  that 
imparted  to  the  ancient  jDaganism  its  distinctive  char- 
acter, not  merely  as  an  aberration  or  apostasy  from 
God,  but  as  an  outward  realization  and  embodiment 
of  that  apostasy — not  merely  as  a  sin,  but  as  a  reli- 
gion? This  is  a  cpiestion  which  has  occupied  the 
thoughts  and  tasked  the  j^owers  of  some  of  the  most 
learned  and  profound  historical  explorers  of  the  pres- 
ent day,  and  which  has  led  them  to  a  laborious  com- 
parison of  all  that  still  remains  to  illustrate  or  exem- 
plify the  false  religions  of  the  ancient  world ;  and, 
whether  right  or  wrong,  they  are  strangely  unanimous 
in  the  conclusion  that  the  unity  of  these  religions  lies 
in  this,  that  they  are  all  in  origin,  or  tendency,  or 


ROMANS  1    25.  91 

both,  avowedly  or  covertly,  tlie  "Worship  of  nature. 
However  they  might  differ  in  their  symbols  or  their 
rites,  iu  their  theology  or  ethics,  they  are  all  reducible 
to  this  at  last.  However  far  they  may  have  deviated 
from  the  first  intuition — however  far  the  crowd  of 
worshippers  may  frequently  have  been  from  compre- 
hending the  full  import  of  the  services  in  which  they 
W'Cre  engaged,  it  is  suj^posed  that  by  a  natural  histor- 
ical deduction,  this  pervading  character  may  still  be 
traced  in  all  of  them — the  worship  of  nature. 

This  view  of  the  matter  does  not,  of  course,  ex- 
clude a  vast  variety  of  forms  and  of  gradations  in  the 
theory  as  well  as  in  the  practice  of  idolatry.  The 
lowest  stage,  above  that  of  mere  stupid  acquiescence 
in  an  arbitrary  and  unmeaning  rite,  may  be  described 
as  the  religious  worship  of  particular  natural  objects 
or  their  artificial  representatives.  Within  this  limit  a 
diversity  might  still  exist,  determined  by  the  nature 
of  the  objects  worshipped,  and  their  rank  in  the  scale 
of  existence,  from  the  shapeless  stone  or  mass  of  earth, 
to  plants,  to  trees — from  the  meanest  brutes  to  the 
most  noble — from  moles  and  bats  to  the  lion  and  to 
the  eagle — from  the  clod  to  the  mountain — from  the 
spring  to  the  ocean — from  earth  to  heaven. 

A  still  more  intellectual  variety  of  such  worship 
would  be  that  which,  instead  of  individual  sensible 
objects,  paid  its  adorations  to  the  elements  or  to  the 
mysterious  powders  of  nature,  such  as  heat,  cold,  mois- 
ture, light  and  darkness,  life  and  death.  By  a  still 
higher  act  of  philosophical  abstraction,  some  who 
were  considered  most  enlightened  and  exempt  from 
vulgar  prejudices,  worshipped  Nature  itself,  the  ma- 


92  SERMONS. 

terial  universe,  to  ttuv,  including  all  tlie  power  and 
elements  and  individual  objects  which  have  been  al- 
ready mentioned.  This  was  the  highest  reach  of  the 
idolatrous  theology,  the  worship  of  nature  in  its  last 
degree  of  sublimation ;  but  from  this  down  through 
all  the  inferior  gradations,  it  was  still  essentially  the 
same  religion — it  was  still  the  worship  of  nature — the 
highest  knowledge  was  the  knowledge  of  nature — the 
most  sacred  mysteries  were  the  secrets  of  nature — 
sin  was  a  violation  of  nature — holiness  was  conformity 
to  nature — atonement  was  reconciliation  with  nature, 
or  restoration  to  a  state  of  nature.  This  was  the  god, 
or  rather  the  divinity,  whom  they  adored.  When 
regarded  as  one  without  personality — when  viewed  as 
personal  no  longer  one — a  hideous  choice  between  a 
god  without  life,  and  an  army  of  gods  with  it,  be- 
tween Polytlieism  with  its  practical  follies,  and  Pan- 
theism with  its  abstract  liorrors. 

But  amidst  all  these  capricious  alternations,  and 
under  all  these  varying  disguises,  the  same  unaltered 
countenance  still  glares  upon  us  from  behind  its  thou- 
sand masks ;  the  same  inflamed,  yet  lifeless  eye  still 
follows  us  wherever  we  may  turn  among  the  altars, 
and  the  idols,  and  the  shrines  of  heathenism.  The 
endless  confusion  of  the  voices  which  ascend  in  prayer 
and  praise  from  these  polluted  sanctuaries,  ever  and 
anon  are  heard  in  unison,  at  least  in  concord.  Their 
gods  are  many,  but  their  god  is  one — their  worship, 
after  all,  is  but  the  worship)  of  nature.  "Whatever  we 
may  think  as  to  tlie  truth  or  plausibility  of  these  views 
with  respect  to  the  essential  character  of  ancient  hea- 
thenism, they  derive  at  least  some  countenance  from 


ROMANS  1,  25.  93 

the  solution  which  they  seem  to  afford  of  the  phe- 
nomenon already  mentioned — the  disappearance  of 
idolatry  as  one  of  the  most  frequent  forms  in  which 
the  corruption  of  mankind  once  acted  out  its  opposi- 
tion to  the  doctrines  and  the  precepts  of  the  true  reli- 
gion. On  this  hypothesis,  if  on  no  other,  it  may  cer- 
tainly be  said,  that,  though  the  impious  among  our- 
selves no  longer  pray  to  stocks  and  stones,  or  beasts 
and  birds,  or  moon  and  stars,  there  is  still  a  strong 
taint  of  idolatry  perceptible  in  our  religion,  science, 
literature,  business, — nay,  om*  very  language.  Yes,  I 
say  our  very  language  ;  for,  to  what  strange  accident 
can  it  be  owing,  that  in  common  parlance  and  in  cur- 
rent literature  there  should  be  so  constant,  so  instinc- 
tive an  aversion  to  the  name  of  God  as  a  personal  dis- 
tinctive appellation.  That  the  names  of  Christ  and 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  should  be  shunned,  is  less  surpris- 
ing, these  being  so  peculiar  to  the  dialect  of  revela- 
tion, not  to  say  of  the  New  Testament.  But  the  same 
considerations  do  not  serve  to  explain  the  almost  su- 
perstitious care  with  which  our  irreligious  writers  man- 
age to  dispense  with  what  would  seem  to  be  the  most  in- 
dispensable of  all  words — the  incommunicable  name  of 
God.  Can  it  be  reverence,  religious  awe,  that  j^rompts 
this  suppression  ?  a  feeling  near  akin  to  that  which 
led  the  Jews  in  early  time,  and  ever  since,  to  hush  up, 
as  it  were,  the  tetragrammaton,  the  dread  name  of 
Jehovah,  as  too  sacred  even  to  be  whispered  in  the 
sanctuary  by  his  own  anointed  priest,  or  breathed  by 
the  heart-broken  suppliant  at  the  altar  ?  Is  it  this 
makes  our  novelists  and  journalists  as  much  afraid  to 
speak  of  God  as  if  they  thought  he  would  appear  be- 


94:  SERMONS. 

fore  them  at  the  call  ?  Alas,  this  exj-lanation  is  pre- 
cluded by  the  levity  with  which  the  same  men  often 
make  that  venerable  name  the  theme  of  ribald  jests 
and  the  burden  of  blasphemous  imprecation.  ISo  ; 
the  name  seems  to  be  shunned  because  it  means  too 
much,  suggests  too  much,  concedes  too  much.  ISTot 
that  they  would  deny  the  being  of  a  God,  or  that  they 
have  a  settled  creed  at  all  about  the  matter,  but  they 
feel,  perhaps  they  know  not  why,  that  otlier  modes 
of  speech  are  more  congenial,  and  the  choice  of  these 
may  throw  some  light  upon  the  secret  motive  of  the 
change. 

]S[ot  only  is  the  grand  and  simple  name  of  God 
exchanged  for  a  descriptive  title,  such  as  Supreme 
Being — or  an  abstract  term,  the  Deity — but  still  more 
readily  and  frequently  is  God  supplanted  by  a  god- 
dess, and  her  name  is  l^ature.  It  is  nature  that  en- 
dows men  with  her  gifts  and  graces :  it  is  nature 
that  piles  mountains  upon  mountains  in  her  sportive 
freaks:  it  is  nature  that  regulates  the  seasons  and 
controls  the  elements.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
this  language  has  a  very  different  sense  in  different 
cases,  and  that  it  may  even  be  employed  by  the  de- 
voutest  Christian  without  any  intentionail  dej)arture 
from  the  truth.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  some 
mouths,  this  definition  of  nature  is  only  a  rhetorical 
trope  or  a  poetical  embellishment — in  others  a  eu- 
phemistic substitute  for  God — in  others  a  collective 
abstract  term,  denoting  the  whole  aggregate  of  second 
causes  and  of  instrumental  agencies,  without  excluding 
the  immediate  presence  and  efficient  action  of  the 
First  Cause  and  Prime  Mover.     But  whether  these 


ROMANS  1,  25.  95 

exceptions  are  enough  to  cover  all  the  cases,  whether 
these  solutions  are  snflicient  to  account  for  the  in- 
creasing disposition  in  our  popular  and  fashionable 
writers,  to  let  nature  and  her  works  and  her  gifts 
and  her  graces  usurp  the  place  of  God  and  His  works 
and  His  gifts  and  His  graces,  is  another  question.  But 
even  if  we  give  it  an  affirmative  and  favourable  an- 
swer, it  is  still  an  odd  coincidence  that  this  darling 
figure  of  speech  or  philosophical  formula  should  so 
exactly  tally  with  the  spirit  and  language  of  idolatry 
or  paganism  considered  as  the  worshij)  of  nature. 

But  this  coincidence,  though  strange,  w^ould  not 
be  so  surprising  as  it  is,  if  it  were  limited  to  literary 
composition.  All  but  the  highest  class  of  writers 
have  their  mannerism  and  their  affectations,  which, 
although  offensive  to  a  pure  taste,  must  be  borne  with 
and  forgiven  as  inevitable.  These  are  sometimes  de- 
rived from  unsuccessful  imitation,  even  of  the  best 
models.  And  the  modes  of  speech  in  question  may, 
in  some,  be  the  effect  of  classical  studies,  just  as 
youthful  poets  often  introduce  the  classical  mythology 
for  ornament,  without  the  slightest  faitli  in  its  reality 
as  matter  of  belief.  It  may  be  said  tlicn,  that  so  long 
as  these  imaginary  traces  of  the  old  idolatry  are  only 
found  in  word  and  phrase  they  are  innocent  enough, 
and  that  they  need  excite  no  serious  alarm  until  they 
show  themselves  in  deed  as  well  as  word,  and  in  the 
practical  realities  of  life  as  well  as  in  the  fanciful 
creations  of  romance  or  poetry.  They  wlio  give  tliis 
challenge  might  perhaps  be  surprised  to  find  it  readily 
accepted,  and  still  more  to  be  told  that  these  analogies 
are  traceable  in  real  life  and  its  least  romantic  and 


96  SERMONS, 

imaginative  walks,  in  the  labours  of  tlie  field  and  of 
tlie  shop  no  less  than  in  those  of  the  study  and  the 
library.  The  compulsory  dependence  upon  seasons, 
weather,  rain,  and  sunshine,  which  accompanies  the 
culture  of  the  earth,  is  a  divine  appointment,  and  is 
therefore  perfectly  compatible  with  faith  and  a  devo- 
tional spirit.  But  when  divorced  from  these,  it  takes 
the  form  of  an  extreme  anxiety,  a  breathless  watch- 
ing of  the  elements,  a  superstitious  faith  in  something 
quite  distinct  from  God,  although  perhaj)S  below  him, 
and  a  constant  disposition  to  invest  this  something 
with  an  individual  existence  and  with  personal  attri- 
butes ;  although  it  may  prove  nothing  with  respect 
to  an}'  formal  opinion  or  belief,  it  certainly  presents 
another  strange  approximation  to  the  spirit  and  the 
practice  of  the  old  idolaters.  The  besotted  fisherman 
who  on  om*  own  coast  feels  himself  to  be  the  slave  of 
the  winds  and  tides,  without  a  thought  of  God  as 
their  creator  and  his  own,  is  not  so  very  far  removed 
as  we  may  imagine  from  the  state  of  the  old  Greek  or 
Phenician  who  sacrificed  to  Ocean  ere  he  launched 
his  bark.  The  mariner  who  spends  whole  nights  in 
whistling  for  the  wind  may  do  it  from  habit  or  may  do 
it  in  jest ;  but  he  may  also  do  it  with  a  secret  faith  and 
a  feeling  of  dependence  near  akin  to  worship,  and  by 
no  means  wholly  diflerent  in  kind  from  the  emotions 
of  the  ancient  pagan,  as  he  poured  out  his  libations 
to  Eolus,  or  his  prayers  to  the  i:)articular  wind  of  which 
he  stood  in  need.  The  social  and  domestic  super- 
stitions which  have  lingered  in  all  Christian  countries, 
as  to  signs  of  good  and  evil  luck,  and  the  methods  of 
procuring  or  averting  it,  are  not  always  mere  errors  in 


ROMANS  1,  25.  9Y 

philosophy  or  morals,  but  religions  aberrations,  the 
relics  and  memorials  of  a  heathenism  which  Ave 
sometimes  look  npon  with  too  much  confidence  as 
finally  exploded.  "We  often  hear,  and  are  compelled 
to  acknowledge,  that  there  is  lieathenism  among  us  ; 
but  it  is  not  merely  negative — the  ignorance  or  unbe- 
lief of  what  is  true,  it  has  always  more  or  less  a  posi- 
tive reality,  the  actual  belief  of  what  is  false  ;  and  if 
we  should  be  supposed  to  relapse  as  a  nation  into  bar- 
barism and  idolatry — perhaps  the  first  steps  of  the 
retrocession  would  be  found  to  have  been  already 
taken  in  the  cherishing  of  petty  superstitions,  and  the 
practice  of  devices,  which  have  either  been  transmit- 
ted by  tradition  from  a  heathen  origin,  or  sprung  di- 
rectly from  the  same  prolific  principle — the  natural 
propensity  of  fallen  man  to  the"  worship  of  nature. 

But  here  again  an  unfair  advantage  may  appear 
to  be  taken  of  the  j)opular  credulity  and  ignorance, 
and  the  same  objection  may  be  made  to  sweeping  in- 
ferences from  the  errors  of  the  vulgar,  as  before  from 
the  affectations  of  the  literary  world.  The  very  fact 
that  the  disputed  proofs  have  been  derived  from  quar- 
ters so  remote  and  so  dissimilar,-  might  seem  to  give 
them  new  and  independent  weight.  But  even  admit- 
ting that  the  objection  is  again  a  valid  one — that  men 
in  general  cannot  be  philosophers,  and  that  the  unin- 
structed  multitude  must  always  embrace  errors,  some 
of  which  may  accidentally  resemble  those  of  heathen- 
ism :  let  us  ascend  again  into  the  region  of  intellectual 
cultivation,  and  continue  our  inquiries  there,  not  as 
before  in  reference  to  modes  of  speech  and  styles  of 
composition,  but  in  reference  to  scientific  observation. 

VOL.  I. — 5 


9g  SERMONS. 

Here  again  we  find  the  furthest  reach  of  speculation 
and  discovery  compatible,  and  actually  blended  with 
the  simplest  faith  and  the  lowliest  devotion.  But  it 
is  not  always  so.  The  philosophical  explorer  does 
not  always  "look  through  nature  up  to  nature's  God." 
He  often  stops  short  of  that  glorious  object.  He  often 
looks  upon  God's  place  as  empty,  or  as  filled  by  an- 
other— by  another  yet  the  same — for  this  usurper  of 
the  throne  and  of  the  worshipper's  affections,  is  still 
that  nature,  the  appeals  to  which  by  other  classes 
have  already  been  explained  away  as  forms  of  speech 
or  ignorant  misapprehensions.  I^o  one  supposes  that 
astronomers  in  Christian  countries  ever  formally  adore 
the  stars,  or  that  geologists  are  worshippers  of  mother 
earth,  or  chemists  of  the  elements,  or  botanists  of 
trees  and  flowers.  But  let  the  evidence  that  some  of 
all  these  classes  recognize  a  Nature,  quite  distinct 
from  God,  by  whose  mysterious  virtues  these  effects 
are  all  produced,  and  whose  authoritative  laws  are 
independent  of  his  will,  I  say  let  the  detailed  in- 
dications of  this  strange  belief  be  gathered  from 
the  language,  from  the  actions,  and,  as  for  as  may  be, 
from  the  feelings  of  these  votaries  of  science  ;  and 
then  weighed  against  the  corresponding  proofs  of 
their  belief  in  one  Supreme,  Infinite,  and  Personal 
God,  distinct  from  all  his  works,  and  sovereign  over 
them,  to  whose  inspection  all  things  are  open,  and 
without  whose  knowledge  and  permission  not  a  hair 
falls  or  a  sparrow  dies  ;  let  those  two  testimonies  bo 
confronted  and  compared,  and  then  it  will  appear 
whether  some  who  have  deservedly  been  ranked 
among  the  prophets  and  the  high  priests  of  material 


ROMANS  1,  25.  99 

wisdom  were  in  heart  and  practice  worsliippers  of  God, 
or  (like  the  blinded  heathen)  worshippers  of  nature. 

The  analogies  which  have  been  suggested  may 
be  fanciful,  or  even  if  well  founded  they  may  be 
restricted  to  the  cases  specified,  and  leave  untouched 
a  multitude  in  Christian  and  in  Protestant  commu- 
nities, who  in  neither  of  the  ways  described  are  wor- 
shippers of  nature.  But  of  these  a  large  proportion 
may  be  comprehended  in  another  category,  as  roman- 
tic and  poetical  idolaters  of  nature,  who  adore  her 
not  for  her  material  gifts,  nor  yet  as  the  object  of 
severe  and  scientific  scrutiny,  but  as  the  source  of  sen- 
sible and  imaginative  pleasure.  These  are  the  wor- 
shipj)ers  of  beauty  in  its  widest  sense,  to  whom  the 
beautiful  is  the  chief  good,  or  its  highest  manifes- 
tation. The  keenest  sensibility  of  this  kind  has  been 
found  in  combination  with  the  strongest  faith  and 
most  devout  affections  ;  nor  is  there  any  thing  in 
either  to  forbid  their  frequent,  their  habitual  union. 
But  reason  and  experience  alike  bear  witness  that  the 
combination  is  not  necessary  ;  that  although  the  ele- 
ments may  coexist,  they  may  exist  apart ;  they  have 
done,  they  do  still,  exist  apart.  The  voice  that  whispers 
in  the  trees  or  roars  in  the  tornado,  may  to  some  ears 
be  the  voice  of  God ;  and  every  note  of  that  grand 
music  may  be  set  to  words  on  record  here  ; — but  they 
may  also  utter  other  inspirations,  and  bring  responses 
from  another  oracle.  Instead  of  calling  us  to  God, 
they  may  but  call  us  to  themselves,  or  to  the  place 
where  nature  sits  enthroned  as  God.  This  form  of 
nature  worship  far  surpasses  all  the  others  in  the 
strength  of  its  appeals  to  human  sensibility.     The- 


100  SERMONS. 

ejc,  the  ear,  the  memoiy,  the  imagination,  the  affec- 
tions, may  be  all  enslaved.  The  spell  requires  for  its 
effect  no  scientific  lore,  no  mercenary  interest,  but 
only  constitutional  susceptibility  of  strong  impressions 
from  the  grand  or  beautiful.  It  requires  the  aid  nei- 
ther of  superstitious  fears  nor  philosophical  abstrac- 
tions. It  only  asks  men  to  be  pleased,  excited,  awed, 
subdued.  The  more  delicious  the  sensations,  the 
more  irresistible  the  spell.  It  may  be,  and  it  is  some- 
times the  case,  that  this  extraordinary  power  is  all 
used  to  make  God  present  to  the  soul.  But  how  much 
oftener  to  steep  it  in  oblivion  of  him,  and  to  bound 
its  views  by  that  stupendous  framework  which  was 
reared  to  bring  men  nearer  to  their  Maker,  but  when 
thus  employed  forever  hinders  their  aj)proach,  and 
even  hides  him  from  their  view. 

This  form  of  idolatry  has  all  the  aid  that  art  can 
yield  to  nature.  The  idolater  of  nature  cannot  but 
be  an  idolater  of  art.  And  here  the  coincidence  with 
heathenism  is  not  one  of  principle  only,  but  of  out- 
ward form.  Tlie  high  art  of  the  ancients  was  a  part 
of  their  religion.  It  was  not  an  idle  tickling  of  the 
sense  or  fancy.  In  the  perfection  of  their  imitation 
and  the  beauty  of  their  original  creations  they  did 
honour  to  the  god  of  their  idolatry,  not  indirectly,  as 
the  author  of  their  skill,  but  most  directly,  as  its 
only  object.  It  was  nature  that  they  represented, 
beautified,  and  worshipped.  The  gradual  return  in 
modern  times  to  this  view  of  the  arts,  and  the  impas- 
sioned zeal  with  which  it  is  pursued,  if  not  among 
ourselves,  in  other  lands,  is  one  of  the  most  startling 
analogies  to  heathenism  that  can  be  produced,  and 


ROMANS  1,  25.  101 

promises  or  threatens,  more  than  any  other,  to  result 
in  an  exterior  resemblance  corresponding  to  the  essen- 
tial one  described  already. 

It  may  no  doubt  be  said  that  this  romantic  and 
poetical  apotheosis  both  of  art  and  nature  has  result- 
ed by  reaction  from  the  barbarous  neglect  and  the 
unscriptural  contempt  especially  of  God's  material 
works,  as  suited  to  excite  the  powers  and  refine  the 
taste,  not  only  without  prejudice  to  faith  and  piety, 
but  so  as  to  jDromote  them.  This  is  in  some  sense 
true,  nor  is  this  the  only  case  in  which  the  errors  of 
the  church  have  served  to  aggravate  tlie  errors  and 
abuses  of  the  Avorld.  Had  Christians  always  exer- 
cised a  wise  discretion  in  relation  to  the  love  and  ad- 
miration both  of  nature  and  of  art,  this  poetical  idola- 
tr}^  might  possibly  have  spared  some  of  its  most 
extravagant  displays.  But  the  idolatry  itself  springs 
from  a  deeper  and  remoter  source.  As  long  as  man 
retains  the  sensibilities  which  God  has  given  him  and 
yet  remains  unwilling  to  retain  God  in  his  thoughts, 
the  voice  of  nature  will  be  louder  than  the  voice  of 
God.  If  God  is  not  in  the  wind,  the  fire,  or  the 
earthquake,  these  will  nevertheless  sweep  the  multi- 
tude before  them,  and  the  still  small  voice  of  revela- 
tion be  heard  only  by  a  chosen  few.  AVhen  certain 
causes  now  at  work  have  had  their  full  eflcct,  the 
worshipper  of  God  will  again  be  like  Elijah  on  Mt. 
lloreb,  while  the  vast  mixed  multitude  arc  worship- 
pers of  nature. 

If  the  agreements  which  have  now  been  traced  be- 
tween the  spirit  and  practice  of  the  irreligious  world 
and  those  of  the  heathen  as  w^orshippers  of  nature, 


102 


SERMONS. 


really  exist  and  are  Vnat  they  lia^  e  been  represented, 
it  may  reasonably  be  expected  that  the  principle  of 
this  idolatry  will  not  only  show  itself  in  art  and  spread 
itself  as  spiritual  leaven,  but  avow  itself  in  doctrine. 
It  has  done  so  already  in  the  pantheistical  philosoj)hy 
of  Germany,  and  in  the   form  w^hicli  it  has  given, 
there   and  elsewhere,  to  theology,  to  science,  to  ro- 
mantic fiction,   to  rhetorical  criticism,   to   the  theo- 
ry and  practice  of  the  arts.     The  taint  of  this  infec- 
tion  may  be   traced  by  critical  antopsis   in  places 
where  its  name  would  not  be  foreseen.     It  may  be 
found  adhering  to  schemes  of  doctrine  highly  evan- 
gelical in  general  form  as  well  as  in  profession.     At 
the  same  time  it  may  be  detected  poisoning  the  full 
flow  of  poetic  inspiration,  and  insinuating  its  corrup- 
tion into  the  enjoyment  afforded  by  the  imitative  arts 
in  their  least  offensive  and  apparently  most  useful 
applications.     Guided  in  almost  any  direction  by  this 
phantom,  he  who  sets  out  as  a  worshipper  of  God, 
may  find  himself  before  he  is  aware,  a  gross  idolater 
of  nature.     It  would  seem  then  that  if  we  once  as- 
sume   as    an  established  fact  that  heathenism  is  in 
origin  and  principle  the  worship  of  nature,  we  are  not 
so  wholly  free  from  all  idolatrous  propensities  as  we 
might  otherwise  imagine  ;  and  that  although  Jupiter 
and  Baal  have  no  images  or  shrines  among  us,  the  same 
spirit  which  once  prompted  and  controlled  their  wor- 
ship, may,  at  least,  be  faintly  traced  not  only  in  our 
forms  of  speech,  but  in  the  various  walks  of  life  and 
classes  of  society— in  the  mercenary,  practical,  indus- 
trial, utilitarian   idolatry  of  worldly,  money-making 
men — in  the  learned  philosophical  idolatry  of  unde- 


ROMANS  1,  25.  103 

vout  astronomers  and  men  of  science — in  the  poeti- 
cal, romantic,  and  sestlietical  idolatry  of  those  who 
worship  art  and  beauty — and  in  the  formal  jDroposi- 
tions  or  the  indirect  insinuations  of  pantheistical  phi- 
losophers and  theologians. 

With  respect  to  the  last  cases,  it  is  highly  im- 
portant to  observe,  that  they  are  strongly  distinguished 
from  the  rest  by  the  religious  air  which  they  assume 
and  their  appropriation  of  established  forms  of  speech 
to  new  and  very  different  objects.  This  tone  and 
dialect  of  piety  have  aided  not  a  little  in  the  progress 
of  these  innovations.  Like  the  child  who  thought 
that  any  book  was  good  in  which  the  name  of  God 
occurred,  some  children  of  a  larger  growth  appear  to 
be  persuaded  that  the  formulas  of  Christian  devotion 
must  be  equally  significant  and  equally  demonstrative 
of  truth  and  goodness,  whether  applied  to  God  and 
Christ  or  to  the  woods  and  the  waves,  the  lightning, 
and  the  flowers.  But  this  tone  of  deep  religious  feel- 
ing, when  divorced  from  the  legitimate  objects  of 
such  feeling,  only  shows  that  this  devotion  to  the 
works  of  God  or  man  is  truly  a  religion — that  it  is 
not  admiration,  but  worship — that  it  is  not  good  taste, 
but  rank  idolatry.  When  one  of  the  great  founders 
of  this  new  religion,  or  rather  of  this  resuscitated  pa- 
ganism, names,  as  the  object  of  his  love  and  trust, 
God  in  his  most  intimate  union  with  nature,  it  is  easy 
to  perceive  that  the  union  he  contemplates  is  a  union 
of  identity,  that  God  is  still  retained  as  a  convenient 
and  familiar  name,  but  that  the  true  divinity,  en- 
ehrined  and  chanted,  with  such  exquisite  appliances 


104: 


SERMONS. 


of  i^aintiug,  sculpture,  poetry,  and  music,  is  not   the 
God  of  revelation  but  the  goddess  of  Nature. 

From  all  this  it  becomes  us  to  take  warning,  that 
whatever  we  do  we  do  with  our  eyes  open,  to  see  to  it 
that  we  incur  not  the  reproach,  "  Ye  know  not  what  ye 
worship,"  and  to  see  to  it  that  we  are  not  led  into 
idolatry  b}^  any  specious  figments  or  delusions,  lest 
we  be  constrained  to  take  up  the  lament  of  those 
confessors  in  the  times  of  heathen  persecution,  who, 
though  proof  against  all  menace  and  persuasion,  were 
at  last  miserably  cheated  into  acts  of  worship  at  the 
altar  of  an  idol,  when  they  thought  themselves  kneel- 
ing at  tlie  altar  of  their  God.  But  against  this  fear- 
ful issue  mere  precaution  avails  nothing.  To  the  vo- 
taries and  victims  of  these  "  strong  delusions,"  some- 
thing definite  and  positive  must  be  presented,  as  an 
object  of  faith  and  of  afi'ection.  To  the  active  mind, 
excited  and  half  frenzied  by  the  vague  but  captivat- 
ing dreams  of  a  disguised  idolatry,  it  is  not  enough 
to  say — be  rational.  The  surges  of  that  troubled  sea, 
the  heart  of  man,  when  roused  by  these  impetuous 
winds  of  doctrine,  can  be  lulled  by  no  voice  but  the 
voice  of  him,  who  from  the  storm-tossed  bark  upon 
the  waters  of  Genessaret,  cried  of  old,  in  tones  of  ir- 
resistible authority,  "  Peace,  be  still."  And  even 
then  the  assuaging  influence  seems  to  come  forth,  not 
so  much  from  the  command  as  from  the  personality 
of  him  who  utters  it.  To  some  who  are  already 
drifting  into  the  exterior  circles  of  this  soul-destroy- 
ing whirljjoo],  there  comes  not  only  a  sound  but  a 
sight — an  unexpected  sight.     "Where  all  seemed  dark 


ROMANS  1,  25.  105 

and  black  with  tempest,  there  appears  a  living  form, 
holding  forth  to  yonr  acceptance,  something  real, 
something  certain,  something  living,  something  last- 
ing, something  that  may  be  seen,  and  felt,  and  known, 
and  loved,  and  trusted — a  Father — a  Saviour — a 
Eedeemer  and  a  Comforter.  This,  this,  is  life  eter- 
nal, to  know,  &c.,  falling  down  at  the  feet  of  this  re- 
vealed, this  manifested  God,  and  opening  to  him 
yonr  mind,  your  conscience,  and  your  heart  forever. 
You  may  turn  to  the  idolaters  of  every  name  and  say 
■v^ith  proud  humility,  "  We  worship,  and  we  know  " 


VOL.  I.- 


Ji* 


VI. 


John  3,  36. — He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life: 
and  he  that  believeth  not  the  Son  shall  not  see  life,  but  the  wrath  of 
God  abideth  on  him. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  evangelical  verses  in  the 
Bible,  that  is  to  say,  one  most  strongly  marked  with 
the  peculiarities  of  the  gospel,  not  only  in  sentiment 
and  spirit,  but  even  in  phraseology.  In  order  to 
understand  this  peculiar  quality,  we  must  in  imagi- 
nation change  our  own  position.  To  us,  who  are  fa- 
miliar with  the  Bible  from  our  infancy,  its  parts,  in  this 
respect,  seem  all  alike.  "With  all  allowance  for  the 
many  advantages  arising  from  this  long  familiarity 
with  Scriptm-e,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  there  are  also 
disadvantages  connected  with  it.  While  the  general 
system  of  divine  truth  is  impressed  upon  our  under- 
standings with  more  fulness  and  distinctness,  partic- 
ular parts  of  it  make  less  impression  on  our  hearts  than 
if  the  whole  were  new.  To  those  who  have  been 
trained  up  in  a  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  the 
method  of  redemption  seems  no  more  surprising  than 
those  attributes  of  God  which  may  be  gathered  from 
his  works.  How  diiferent  the  case  of  a  new  convert 
from  idolatry !     With  him  these  splendid  revelations 


JOHN  3,  36.  107 

are  as  new  as  they  are  glorious,  and  if  he  believes,  he 
believes  with  Iiis  heart.  If  he  believes,  his  heaven 
and  earth  are  new  ;  he  inhabits  a  new  world ;  he  is 
himself  a  new  creature,  and  he  feels  it.  Om*  disad- 
vantage, as  compared  with  such  a  convert,  is  not 
wholly  irremediable,  for  although  the  evil  is  in  some 
degree  inseparable  froni  our  situation,  and  to  that  de- 
gree compensated  by  immense  advantages  of  another 
kind,  it  is  unquestionably  aggravated  by  our  own 
remissness  and  stagnation  in  the  study  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. 

"Who  does  not  feel  that  in  certain  states  of  mind, 
he  sees  a  freshness  and  vitality  in  truth,  which  at 
other  times  are  wanting  ?  And  that  these  states  of 
mind  are  those  precisely  which  he  ought  to  cultivate  ? 
Are  we  not  bound  then  to  acquire  the  habit  of  thus 
viewing  truth,  or  rather  are  we  not  bound  to  seek  the 
aid  of  that  quickening  and  illuminating  Spirit  whose 
prerogative  it  is  to  give  these  glimpses  of  the  truth 
even  to  sinful  mortals  ?  And  may  we  not  hope,  with 
his  assistance,  to  approximate,  if  not  to  reach,  the 
freshness  and  the  richness  of  impression  made  upon 
the  heathen  convert  by  the  grand  discoveries  of  the 
gospel  ? 

How  such  discoveries  affect  such  minds,  may  best 
be  imagined  by  selecting  some  one  passage,  and  sur- 
veying it  as  if  from  the  position  of  a  heathen  for  the 
first  time  brought  to  see  it.  For  such  a  purpose  there 
is  not  a  sentence  in  the  Bible  better  suited  than  the 
text  which  has  been  read  ;  for  as  already  mentioned, 
it  is  full  to  overflowing  with  the  gospel.  Let  us  sup- 
pose an  ancient  Greek  ;    entirely  unacquainted  w^tli 


108 


SERMONS. 


the  Gospel,  or  the  Jewish  system  which  prepared  tL« 
way  for  it,  but  addicted  to  reflection  and  inquiring 
for  the  truth,  to  have  been  present  among  John's  dis- 
ciples when  these  words  were  uttered.  They  would 
have  been  to  him  a  mere  enigma.  Interpreted  accord- 
ing to  his  own  habitual  views  and  feelings,  they  Avould 
have  conveyed  ideas  ;  but  hdw  strange,  how  foreign, 
how  fantastic !  He  that  believeth  on  the  Son.  Who 
is  the  Son?  Why  used  thus  absolutely  as  a  title? 
Who  is  this  Son  that  must  be  trusted  or  believed  ? 
and  why  should  he  be  trusted  ?  or  for  what  ?  For 
everlasting  life.  All  heathen  nations  are  believers  in 
a  future  state,  and  this  expression,  therefore,  would 
be  less  surprising.  But  how  inadequate,  how  false 
the  meaning,  which  the  stranger  must  attach  to  it ! 
How  different  an  endless  life  in  his  elysium  from  the 
gospel  mystery  of  everlasting  life !  The  wrath  of  God 
would  also  be  a  significant  expression  ;  but  here,  if  pos- 
sible, the  contrast  would  be  greater  still  between  the 
Christian  and  the  Gentile  sense.  Tlie  God  of  the 
Bible,  and  the  gods  of  Olympus !  The  wrath  of  Jeho- 
vah, and  the  wrath  of  Jove  !  The  calm  eternal  pur- 
pose of  a  holy  God  to  punish  sin,  compared  with  the 
base  malice  of  an  almighty  sinner.  It  is  needless  to 
observe  how  difficult  it  would  be  to  prepare  the  mind 
of  such  a  person  for  the  light  of  truth.  And  even  if, 
instead  of  being  a  blind  polytheist,  he  were  one  of 
those  who  sought  and  worshipped  the  unknown  God, 
how  foreign  would  the  doctrines  and  the  terms  of  this 
grand  sentence  be,  from  his  vain  speculations.  It  is 
plain  that  it  could  not  be  made  clear  to  him  without 
an  exposition  of  the  gospel  as  to  all  its  leading  prin- 


JOHN  3,  36.  109 

ciples.  This  is  apiDarent  from  tlie  nature  of  tlie  truths 
which  it  expresses  or  involves.  In  order  to  evince 
this,  the  doctiinal  and  practical  substance  of  the  text 
may  be  reduced  to  four  propositions  or  remarks. 

The  first  is,  that  the  highest  good  to  which  we  can 
aspire  is  eternal  life.  Ko  heathen  needs  to  be  in- 
formed that  life  is  something  more  than  existence. 
There  is  a  sympathetic  feeling  with  what  lives,  which 
cannot  be  excited  by  a  lifeless  thing.  We  cannot  feel 
for  a  stone  or  a  clod,  as  we  do  for  a  tree  or  flower 
which  possesses  life  in  its  lowest  form.  Kor  have  we 
that  community  of  feeling  with  a  plant  which  we 
have  with  brute  existence.  We  feel  that  they  are 
nearer  to  ourselves,  and  we  respect  them  or  the  life 
within  them.  But  what  is  our  sympathy  for  beasts 
compared  with  our  regard  for  human  nature  ?  Indi- 
vidual men  we  may  despise  or  hate  even  in  compari- 
son with  lower  animals,  but  no  man  puts  humanity 
below  the  brutes.  Because  he  feels  that  rational  life 
is  better  than  irrational.  Even  this,  however,  is  not 
the  highest  sort  of  life.  For  we  can  conceive  of  reason 
without  the  capacity  of  moral  distinctions,  without 
the  perception  of  moral  good  or  evil.  This  it  is  true 
we  possess,  and  it  adds  so  much  to  the  rank  of  our 
nature  in  the  scale  of  existence.  But  alas !  even  heathen 
know  that  this  moral  life,  if  it  may  so  be  called,  is  quite 
compatible  with  spiritual  death.  We  are  alive  to 
the  perception  of  moral  good,  but  dead  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  it.  Is  it  not  plain  that  a  resurrection  from 
this  death  exalts  us  to  a  sort  of  life  still  higher  ?  Tliis 
is  spiritual  life  ;  i.  e.  not  merely  the  life  of  our  spirits, 
for  in  a  lower  sense  they  were  alive  before,  but  a  life 


1X0  SERMONS. 

produced  by  the  Spirit  of  G  jd.  A-S  this  life  consists 
in  our  being  alive  to  God,  to  the  performance  of  his 
"will  and  the  enjoyment  of  his  favom-,  it  might  seem 
to  be  the  highest  life  of  which  a  finite  being  is  capa- 
ble. In  kind  it  is,  but  not  in  degree.  Its  imperfec- 
tion results  from  the  remaining  power  of  sin.  Lazarus 
has  come  forth,  but  the  grave-clothes  of  spiritual 
death  are  still  about  him.  The  smell  of  the  sepulchre 
still  stupifies  and  sickens  him.  He  sees,  but  with 
bandaged  eyes,  the  glories  that  await  him.  He 
doubts  the  reality  of  his  resurrection.  There  is  a  con- 
flict between  life  and  death,  as  if  the  grave  were  loth 
to  give  him  up.  Such  is  the  spiritual  life  of  man  on 
earth.  From  its  own  nature  it  is  endless  and  pro- 
gressive ;  but  from  the  circumstances  of  the  case, 
imperfect. 

Look  back  now  through  the  scale  which  we  have 
been  ascending,  and  observe  how  each  new  degree  or 
sort  of  life  towers  above  that  below  it.  Each  might 
be  thought  the  highest  possible,  but  for  that  which 
visibly  surpasses  it.  And  now  having  scaled  the 
heights  of  spiritual  life,  what  can  we  desire  or  expect 
beyond  it,  except  that  the  evils  which  now  mar  it  and 
obscure  it  should  be  done  away,  and  that  its  duration, 
which  appears  to  us  precarious,  should  be  rendered 
sure  ?     This  is  eternal  life,  but  is  this  all  ? 

There  is  one  stroke  necessary  to  complete  the  pic- 
ture. AVe  are  too  apt  in  thinking  of  eternal  life,  to 
thinlv  of  it  as  an  eternal  abstraction,  or  at  least  as  con- 
sisting too  exclusively  in  mental  acts  and  exercises. 
Hence  perhaps  that  want  of  joyful  expectation  which 
is  too  characteristic  of  our  reliirious  exercises.     Even 


I 


JOHN  3,  36.  Ill 

to  true  Christians,  the  transition  to  eternity  &.ppear8 
very  often  like  a  passage  from  a  wakeful  state  to 
sleep.  And  some  whose  love  for  Christ  makes  them 
long  for  any  change  which  will  bring  them  nearer 
to  him,  are  apt  to  torment  themselves  because  of  th 
enjoyment  they  derive  from  earthly  and  corporeal 
things,  however  pure  and  innocent.  But  what  if^ 
these  same  sources  of  enjoyment  are  to  be  opened  in  the 
other  world,  and  rendered  inexhaustible,  subordinate 
to  spiritual  joys,  but  not  opposed  to  them.  What  if 
all  those  exquisite  delights  which  we  derive  from 
sights  and  sounds  shall  be  eternal,  in  a  thousandfold 
degree,  and  pure  from  all  contamination  ?  Is  there 
any  thing  unreasonable  in  the  supposition  ?  Ai'e  we 
not  still  to  be  complex  beings,  soul  and  body,  through 
eternity  ?  Is  not  the  inferior  creation  adapted  to  cor- 
poreal natures  ?  Is  it  not  subject  to  vanity  and  groan- 
ing until  our  redemption  ?  Instead  then  of  striving 
against  God's  appointment,  and  obscuring  our  own 
prospect  of  eternal  life,  let  us  make  our  innocent  en- 
joyments all  contribute  to  our  hope  of  immortality, 
and  when  we  think  of  the  life  to  come,  think  of  it  as 
including  all  that  now  gives  real  happiness,  refined 
and  sublimated  and  immortalized.  Let  us  look  upon 
ourselves  as  sick  men  in  a  darkened  room,  just  be- 
ginning to  be  conscious  of  returning  health,  and  in- 
stead of  turning  away  from  every  sunbeam  that  steals 
into  our  chamber,  and  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  every 
bird  that  sings  without,  let  us  rather  feast  upon  them 
as  ingredients  of  that  exquisite  delight  which  shall 
attend  our  final  and  eternal  convalescence. 

But  as  the  sick  man  knows  by  sad  experience  that 


112  SERMONS. 

sights,  and  sounds,  and  sensible  deliglits  are  nothing, 
nay  are  torments  without  health  to  taste  them,  so  let 
us  remember  that  these  miAor  sources  of  enjoyment 
are  dependent  upon  health  of  soul,  and  that  they  can 
do  nothing  more  than  pour  their  tributary  streams 
forever  into  the  ocean  of  eternal  life. 

Here  agam  we  may  look  down  upon  the  path  we 
have  trodden,  and  like  those  who  climb  the  Alps,  see 
diminished  in  the  distance,  what  appeared  stupendous 
when  we  saw  it  near  at  hand.  At  every  former  stage 
there  was  something  to  be  added  or  desired.  But 
now  what  wait  we  for  ?  Do  we  desire  life  in  its 
highest  and  its  purest  form  ?  We  have  it.  Do  we 
ask  security  from  loss  ?  "We  have  it.  Do  we  seek 
variety  and  richness  of  enjoyment  1  It  is  here  beyond 
conception ;  and  to  crown  all  it  is  endless,  and  not 
only  endless  but  eternally  progressive.  The  spiritual 
life  which  now  beats  faintly  in  the  heart  of  the  be- 
liever, shall  beat  on  with  ever-growing  vigor  of  pul- 
sation, till  the  pulse  of  eternity  itself  stands  still. 

Let  us  suppose  a  serious  heathen  to  have  formed 
this  conception  of  eternal  life,  and  to  be  filled  with 
admiration  of  its  glories.  He  could  not  long  continue 
so  absorbed  in  it  as  to  lose  sight  of  its  relation  to  him- 
self. He  would  soon  leam  to  compare  his  own  ex- 
perience with  this  splendid  picture,  and  if  at  all 
enlightened  by  the  grace  of  God,  to  feel  that  between 
himself  and  this  eternal  life,  there  was  a  great  gulf 
fixed,  and  that  its  happiness  could  only  make  him 
miserable ;  just  as  we  may  suppose  the  sight  of  iJ^oah's 
ark  aff'ected  those  who  caught  a  passing  glimpse  of 
it  before  they  sunk  forever.     JSTo  man  can  form  any 


JOHN  S,  36.  113 

adequate  conception  of  eternal  life  without  some  con- 
ception of  that  God  in  whose  favour  it  consists.  'No 
contemplation  of  the  attributes  of  Jupiter,  or  Yenus, 
or  Apollo,  could  result  in  a  just  idea  of  eternal  life. 
That  life  presupposes  the  idea  of  a  holy  God  ;  holy 
not  only  in  himself,  but  in  his  requisitions ;  the  author 
of  a  holy  law,  requiring  perfect  and  perpetual  obe- 
dience, not  in  outward  action  only,  but  in  thought  and 
desire. 

The  moment  the  pure  light  of  this  conception 
flashes  on  the  mind  of  the  inquirer,  it  conjures  up  an 
image  of  himself  standing  opposite  to  God,  and  odious 
in  proportion  to  God's  excellence.  Knowing,  as  he 
now  does,  that  eternal  life  is  the  eternal  death  of  sin, 
he  feels  the  dagger  at  his  heart,  he  feels  his  spiritual 
death,  and  he  despairs.  But  he  awakes,  and  arises  in 
the  fond  hope  of  escape.  As  sin  has  been  his  death, 
he  now  resolves  that  sin  shall  die.  He  will  sin  no 
more.  Here  a  new  revelation  throws  its  light  upon 
his  path.  He  cannot  cease  from  sin  ;  he  is  its  slave  ; 
it  dwells  within  him  ;  his  evil  thoughts  and  acts  arc 
from  his  heart,  and  his  heart  is  dead  in  sin.  Can  he 
give  it  life  ?  Can  his  own  actions  make  their  own 
cause  pure  ?  Here  is  a  new  despair,  and  it  is  deep- 
ened by  perceiving  that  even  if  he  could  cease  from 
sinning,  the  law  already  broken  would  not  cease  from 
its  demands.  His  intended  reformation  is  both  use- 
less and  impossible. 

Left  to  himself,  he  can  conceive  but  one  other 
method  of  escape.  It  is  the  hope  that  God  will  set 
aside  the  law,  forgive  him  by  a  sovereign  act,  and 
make  him  a  new  creature.     As  he  looks  towards  the 


11^  SERMOXS. 

light  inaccessible,  where  God  resides,  in  search  of 
something  to  confirm  this  expectation,  he  is  blinded 
and  dazzled,  but  completely  undeceived.  Ht  sees  no 
dark  spot  in  that  blaze  of  living  light,  no  shadow  of 
connivance  or  indifference  to  sin.  He  sees,  too,  that 
this  spotless  brightness  constitutes  the  glory  of  the 
Godhead,  and  that  the  fulfilment  of  his  hopes  and 
wishes  would  have  impaired  his  reverence  for  God. 
He  withdraws  his  dazzled  eyes  and  closes  them,  as  he 
supposes,  in  eternal  darkness.  But  on  this  darkness 
a  new  light  begins  to  steal — a  ray  from  the  luminous 
abode  of  God.  He  starts  up  in  amazement;  he  con- 
siders for  the  first  time  that  all  his  former  hopes  were 
centred  in  himself.  His  eye  now  follows  the  divine 
light  to  a  point  exterior  to  himself;  he  conceives  the 
possibility  of  escape  through  another ;  he  forms  the 
conception  of  an  intermediate  object  between  God's 
inexorable  justice  and  himself;  and,  after  many  alter- 
nations of  despair  and  hope,  it  flashes  on  his  mind 
that  both  the  ends  which  he  considered  incompatible, 
may  thus  be  brought  about — sin  may  be  punished, 
and  the  sinner  saved. 

But  a  cloud  passes  over  this  celestial  light.  Are 
not  all  men  alike  ?  And  if  no  man  can  make  satisfac- 
tion for  himself,  how  shall  any  man  make  satisfaction 
for  another  ?  The  resolution  of  this  doubt  is  the  most 
astonishing  development  of  all.  Though  man  may 
not  make  satisfaction  for  another,  may  not  God  ?  The 
thought  seems  impious  tliat  God  should  pay  the  pen- 
alty of  his  own  law,  until  the  last  veil  is  withdrawn 
and  the  astonished  soul  beholds  the  great  mystery  of 
godliness — God  manifest  in  the  flesh.     The  Mediator 


JOHN  3,  36.  115 

is  both  God  and  man — the  Son  of  God  and  the  Son  of 
Man,  and  in  both  senses  called  the  Son,  a  name  no 
longer  enigmatical — a  perfect  man  without  sins  to  be 
expiated.  Here  one  difficulty  falls  away.  At  the 
same  time  he  is  God,  and  his  divinity  gives  infinite 
value  to  his  sufferings  and  obedience.  They  are, 
therefore,  available  for  others  also.  This  resolves  the 
other  doubt,  the  darkness  rolls  away,  and  the  sun  of 
righteousness,  without  a  spot  or  cloud, 

"Flames  in  the  forehead  of  the  mornuig  sky." 

The  work  demanded  of  the  sinner  himself  is  only 
hard  because  it  is  so  easy.  It  is  hard  to  do  little 
when  we  think  we  must  do  much — hard  to  do  nothing 
when  we  think  we  must  do  all — hard  to  believe  that 
we  have  only  to  believe,  when  we  expected  to  achieve 
our  own  redemption.  When  once  the  soul  is  brought, 
however,  to  believe  that  this  is  truly  God's  plan  of 
redemption ;  that  the  Son  of  God  is  able  and  willing 
to  save,  and  that  this  salvation  is  sufficient  and  secure ; 
and,  besides  this  general  belief,  accepts  of  this  salva- 
tion for  himself;  the  work  is  done,  the  man  is  justi- 
fied and  safe  forever.  By  some  such  process  as  that 
just  described,  we  may  suppose  a  heathen  to  arrive 
at  the  second  proposition  which  the  text  involves, 
namely.  That  eternal  life  may  be  attained  by  simply 
believing  in  the  Son  of  God. 

From  this  he  would  readily  infer  that  the  converse 
must  be  true,  and  that  the  want  of  faith  involves  the 
loss  of  all  that  perfect  and  enduring  blessedness  called 
eternal  life.  But  here  he  would  be  liable  to  error. 
As  he  himself  was  destitute  of  pure  and  elevated  hap- 


IIQ  SERMONS. 

piness,  he  might  imagine  that  continued  mibelief 
would  leave  men  in  jDOSsession  of  this  -world's  felicity 
or  its  equivalent,  and  merely  rob  them  of  that  more 
exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  glory  which  is  won 
by  faith.  But  this  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel. 
The  loss  of  heaven,  grievous  as  it  is,  would  not  affect 
the  hearts  of  those  who  know  it  not.  Their  very 
reason  for  refusing  heaven,  is  that  the}'  love  the  pleas- 
ures of  sin.  To  deprive  them,  therefore,  of  that  which 
they  despise,  and  give  them  that  which  they  delight 
in,  would  be  rather  to  reward  them  than  to  punish 
them.  The  doctrine  of  the  Gospel  is,  that  from  him 
who  hath  not,  shall  be  taken  even  that  which  he  hath. 
He  that  believes  has  the  promise  both  of  this  life  and 
of  that  which  is  to  come.  He  that  loses  heaven  loses 
this  world  also.  In  the  text  it  is  declared  not  merely 
that  the  unbeliever  shall  not  have  eternal  life,  but  also 
that  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him.  This  obvious- 
ly means  that  the  effect  of  unbelief  will  not  be  a  mere 
negation,  but  a  positive  infliction.  The  wrath  of  God 
is  a  mysterious  phrase  full  of  horror.  It  is  the  array 
of  all  his  attributes  against  a  single  soul  forever. 

Vain  as  it  is  to  attempt  description  of  things  inde- 
scribable, there  are  one  or  two  considerations  which 
may  render  our  conception  more  determinate.  What 
makes  a  life  of  sin  tolerable  here  ?  Three  things  : — 
1,  A  participation  in  the  outward  advantages  of  the 
believer.  2.  Positive  enjoyment  in  sin.  3.  Igno- 
rance of  any  thing  better  which  could  make  the  soul 
dissatisfied  with  sinful  pleasure.  Xow,  these  three 
causes  are  to  be  abolished.  The  wrath  of  God  will 
separate  the  lost  soul  from  the  saved   forever,  and 


JOHN  3,  36.  IIY 

from  all  tlie  advantages  of  order,  comfort,  mutual  re- 
straint, which  now  arise  from  the  connection.  The 
pleasures  of  sin,  too,  are  only  for  a  season ;  they  shall 
cease,  and  its  native  tendency  to  misery  remain  un- 
checked forever.  Finally,  conscience  shall  awake, 
and  have  sufficient  light  to  plant  its  daggers  with  un- 
erring accuracy ;  and  to  complete  the  sum  of  miserj^, 
the  sinner  shall  in  some  degree  know  what  he  has 
lost.  Surely  these  considerations  are  enough  to  give 
us  definite,  though  painful  ideas,  of  the  wrath  of  God, 
whatever  may  be  our  ideas  of  the  material  fires  of  hell. 
It  only  remains  to  add,  that,  as  in  our  estimate  of 
future  happiness,  we  are  too  apt  to  preclude  those 
sources  of  enjoyment  which  we  now  know  by  expe 
rience ;  it  is  also  true,  and  in  a  much  higher  degree, 
that  when  we  think  of  future  misery,  we  think  of  it 
as  something  generically  different  from  what  we  sufier 
here.  But,  if  we  would  bring  home  the  matter  prac- 
tically to  ourselves,  we  must  suppose  the  suflferings  of 
this  life  to  be  indefinitely  aggravated  and  made  eter- 
nally progressive.  The  wretch  who  commits  suicide 
to  shun  the  shame  of  public  execution  or  exposure,  if 
he  believes  in  a  futurity  at  all,  little  imagines  that  the 
very  pang  which  he  endeavored  to  escape  by  this  act 
of  daring  cowardice,  shall  wring  his  soul  with  ever- 
lasting and  increasing  anguish.  Let  no  unbeliever,  in 
his  restless  discontent,  imagine  that  his  disappoint- 
ments, losses,  or  disgraces  will  be  terminated  by  the 
end  of  life  ;  but  let  him  rather  look  forward  to  an  end- 
less propagation  and  recurrence  of  the  self-same  ago- 
nies from  which  he  hopes,  by  dying,  to  escape.  The 
dying  sinner  only  exchanges  a  temporal  for  an  eternal 


118  SERMONS. 

hell — the  short-lived  -wrath  of  man  for  the  eternal 
wrath  of  God,  not  merely  smiting,  bnt  abiding  on 
him. 

These,  then,  are  the  three  propositions  which  must 
be  included  in  the  exposition  of  the  text  to  one  not  ac- 
quainted with  the  Gospel : — 

I.  The  highest  good  to  Avhich  we  can  aspire  or 
attain  is  eternal  life. 

II.  It  cannot  be  merited  or  purchased  by  ourselves, 
but  must  be  secured  by  simple  faith  in  Christ. 

m.  Unbelief  incurs  not  merely  a  privation  of 
the  positive  enjoyments  of  eternal  life,  but  the  posi- 
tive infliction  of  the  wrath  of  God. 

TV.  To  these  I  add  a  fourth,  which  is,  that  these 
foregoing  truths  are  of  universal  application.  "What 
they  would  be  to  a  heathen  they  are  really  to  us.  If 
to  him  they  involve  the  whole  way  of  salvation,  they 
involve  no  less  to  us.  What  more,  indeed,  could  we 
desire  ?  We  have  here  the  great  end  of  existence  set 
before  us — the  glor}'  of  God  and  the  enjoyment  of  his 
favour,  included  and  summed  up  in  eternal  life.  Its 
opposite,  eternal  death,  is  also  set  before  us.  Here, 
too,  is  the  way  of  life,  by  faith  and  nothing  but  faith. 
Not  he  that  worketh,  but  he  that  believeth,  hath  eter- 
nal life.  Finally,  here  we  have  the  object  of  this 
faith  presented  as  the  Son,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Son  of 
Man,  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  a  sacrifice  for  sin,  the 
Captain  of  our  Salvation,  the  Author  and  Finisher  of 
our  faith — the  end,  the  way,  the  guide.  What  more 
can  we  ask  ?  This  is  all  our  salvation  and  all  our 
desire. 

By  this  let  each  man  try  himself.     What  are  you 


JOHN  3,  36.  119 

seeking  ?  Immediate  gratification  or  eternal  life  ? 
And  if  the  latter,  do  jou  Icnow  what  it  consists  in  ? 
Do  you  know  that  it  inchides  all  forms  of  happiness 
hot  stained  with  sin,  and  that  the  loss  of  it  involves 
all  misery,  including  such  as  you  experience  already? 

And  now,  are  you  seeking  everlasting  life  ?  By 
what  law  ?  The  law  of  works,  or  by  the  law  of 
faith  ? 

And  last,  not  least,  what  is  the  object  of  your 
faith  ?  Is  it  God's  uncovenanted  mercy  ? — his  mercy 
as  opposed  to  his  justice  ?  Alas !  there  is  no  such 
mercy.  It  is  not  he  that  believeth  in  a  lie  shall  be 
saved,  but  he  that  believeth  in  the  Son  of  God.  Other 
foundations  can  no  man  lay  save  that  which  is  laid ; 
for  there  is  no  other  name  given  under  heaven  among 
men  whereby  we  must  be  saved.  If  you  have  not 
this  faith,  with  this  exclusive  object,  your  prospect  is 
eternal  death,  and  that  not  merely  loss  of  life,  but 
endless  exposure  to  the  wi'ath  of  God. 

And  here  may  be  brought  more  distinctly  into 
view  a  remarkable  form  of  expression  in  the  text. 
The  threatening  is  not  that  upon  the  unbeliever  wrath 
shall  abide,  but  it  abides  ah-eady.  Here  let  the  pro- 
crastinating soul  be  undeceived.  Distance  of  time 
and  place  works  strange  transformations.  Tell  one 
who  violates  the  law  of  man  that  he  will  be  con- 
demned for  it,  and  he  may  laugh  the  law  and  you 
to  scorn.  But  how  few  laugh  when  told  that  they 
are  condemned  already.  Look  at  the  convict  at 
the  bar,  and  see  how  different  his  aspect  and  de- 
meanour from  his  aspect  and  demeanour  when  at  large. 
Such  is  your  case.  Tou  are,  perhaps,  not  yet  arrested, 


120  SERMONS. 

the  day  of  formal  trial  is  far  distant;  but,  strange  as  it 
may  seem,  when  compared  with  human  process,  you 
are  already  under  sentence.  You  were  born  a  con- 
vict, and  your  past  life  has  only  served  to  aggravate 
your  condemnation.  When  you  are  warned,  there- 
fore, to  escape  the  coming  wrath,  it  is  not  that  you 
can  escape  conviction  as  a  violater  of  the  law  of  God. 
You  are  condemned  already,  and  reprieve  or  pardon 
is  your  only  hope.  "What  if  the  murderer  at  the  gib- 
bet's foot  should  prate  of  his  expecting  to  avoid  con- 
viction, and  talk  of  testimony,  verdicts,  and  new  trials 
on  his  way  to  execution.  Remember,  remember,  that 
God's  wrath  abideth  on  you. 

Here,  too,  may  many  an  enigma  in  the  life  of  man 
receive  a  full  solution.  You  are  rich,  perhaps,  and 
prosperous  in  this  world's  goods,  and  seem  to  the  eye 
of  others  destitute  of  nothing.  But  you  yourself  know 
better.  In  the  midst  of  your  abundance  there  is  empti- 
ness ;  starvation  in  your  feasts,  and  in  your  cups  un- 
dying thirst.  You  cannot  understand  how,  with  all 
the  materials  of  enjoyment,  you  are  joyless.  Hear 
the  reason.  It  is  the  wrath  of  God  abiding  on  you, 
and  distilling  wormwood  into  every  drop  you  swal- 
low. 

Or  are  you  poor,  but  with  an  unblessed  poverty, 
striving  with  vain  efforts  to  be  rich,  or  brooding  in 
idleness  with  spiteful  discontent  over  your  neighbour's 
wealth.  Without  the  advantages  of  wealth,  you  have 
its  cares,  its  load  without  its  strength.  You  can 
neither  attain  the  supposed  felicity  of  being  rich,  nor 
the  more  enviable  peace  of  contentment.  Do  you 
know  the  reason  ?     It  is  the  wrath  of  God  abiding  on 


JOHN  3,  36.  i21 

you,  from  wbicli  jou  must  escape  before  yon  know 
tranquillity. 

The  case  is  the  same  if  you  are  sick,  without  the 
sanctifying  grace  of  sickness ;  or  in  health,  without 
the  grace  which  makes  that  health  a  blessing.  You 
have,  perhaps,  a  feeling  of  perpetual  insecurity.  You 
tremble  when  you  hear  of  death,  and  turn  pale  at  the 
slightest  pain  in  any  of  your  members.  And  alas ! 
you  do  not  know  that  there  is  reason  for  your  fears. 
Look  back,  the  avenger  of  blood  is  just  behind  you, 
and  the  wrath  of  God  abides  already  on  you. 

There  is  yet  another  case,  which,  though  less  com- 
mon in  reality  than  in  appearance,  must  be  mentioned. 
It  is  that  of  the  man  who  feels  no  changes  and  no 
fears,  and  who,  by  means  of  a  peculiar  constitution, 
or  inveterate  induration,  draws  from  the  materials 
of  worldly  happiness  their  full  supply,  without  admix- 
ture. Some  of  you  know,  perhaps,  how  often  the 
appearance  of  this  calmness  is  an  artificial  mask,  put 
on  to  hide  the  fearful  writhings  of  the  countenance. 
You  know  what  is  meant  by  a  life-time  of  hypocrisy, 
not  hypocrisy  in  religion,  but  hypocrisy  in  sin.  "We 
have  much  of  false  professions  in  the  church,  but  we 
know  much  of  false  professions  in  the  world.  The 
profession  of  indifference,  and  peace,  and  courage 
when  ever  and  anon  a  gust  of  passion,  or  a  nausea 
of  the  spirit,  gives  the  lie  to  the  profession. 

But  let  the  man  be  what  he  says  he  is.  Let  him 
neither  feel  nor  believe  the  pressure  of  that  deadly 
burden  which  he  bears  upon  his  back.  Let  him 
imagine,  while  he  bends  beneath  it,  that  he  walks 
erect,  and  in  proportion  as  it  breaks  his  strength,  let 

VOL.  I. — G 


122  SERMONS. 

liim  rise  in  liis  estimate  of  humeri  nature,  and  even 
when  he  finally  sinks  under  it,  let  him  sink,  believing 
that  he  soars,  and  die  in  the  belief  that  he  can  never 
lose  his  life.  Is  this  the  sinner's  consolation  ?  Oh, 
is  this  the  hope,  for  which  he  sold  the  promise  of 
eternal  life?  Is  this  your  way  of  salvation?  Oh 
deceived  soul,  to  escape  the  present  consciousness  of 
wrath  only  by  laying  it  up  in  store  for  your  eternity, 
by  treasuring  up  wrath  against  the  day  of  wi-ath,  and 
still  not  know  that  the  amount  of  it  is  growing.  Oh 
what  a  settling  of  accounts  will  that  be  when  tlic 
vast  accumulations  of  a  life-time  are  brought  out  from 
God's  omniscient  magazine,  and  attached  to  their 
possessor  as  a  mill-stone  to  precipitate  his  everlasting 
fall.  This,  and  this  only,  is  the  hope  and  consolation 
of  the  man  who  feels  no  danger,  and  has  no  Saviour. 

You  gain  nothing,  then,  when  you  gain  a  transient 
respite  from  the  sense  of  present  misery,  l^ay,  those 
who  have  it,  are  of  all  men  most  miserable,  as  their 
insensibility  will  aggravate  their  future  woe ;  and 
even  now,  in  spite  of  it,  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on 
them.  Execution  is  delayed,  but  they  are  condemned 
already. 

Instead,  then,  of  aiming  at  this  fatal  stupor,  strive 
to  feel  your  burden.  Feel  that  the  wi-ath  of  God  is 
now  abiding  on  you,  and  will  there  abide  forever, 
.unless  the  Saviour  soon  remove  it.  Xo  sense  of  this 
oppressive  burden,  how  intense  soever,  can  increase 
your  danger.  Nay,  it  will  prepare  you  the  better  for 
deliverance.  To  the  careless  and  insensible  the  Gospel 
has  no  j)romises.  They  that  are  whole,  need  not  a 
physician.     But  to  the  burdened  and  oppressed  om* 


JOHN  3,  36.  123 

Saviour  uttered  one  of  liis  most  tender  invitations. 
Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  are  weary  and  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Here  is  the  rest  you  should 
seek.  The  rest,  not  of  stupidity,  but  penitence. 
While  you  continue  as  you  are,  the  wrath  of  God 
ahideth  on  you.  But  the  moment  you  believe,  it  is 
transferred  to  the  great  object  of  your  faith,  absorbed 
in  the  vortex  of  his  meritorious  passion,  drowned  in 
the  many  waters  of  his  dying  love,  and  lost  forever. 
Death  is  then  swallowed  up  in  victory,  the  victory  of 
faith,  and  life.  Everlasting  life  becomes  triumphant. 
Behold,  I  have  set  before  you  life  and  death,  blessing 
and  cursing.  Choose  life,  therefore,  that  your  souls 
may  live. 


VII. 


Luke  IT,  32. — Remember  Lot's  wife. 

There  seems  to  be  a  natural  and  universal  dis- 
position to  commemorate  remarkable  characters  in 
history.  ITot  only  are  monuments  erected,  and  books 
written  to  perpetuate  their  names,  but  days  are  set 
apart  for  the  special  purpose  of  remembrance  and  of 
celebration.  Where  the  anniversary  of  the  birth,  or 
of  the  death  can  be  determined,  this  is  commonly 
selected  as  the  period  of  observance.  But  even  when 
these  are  no  longer  ascertainable,  the  disposition  to 
remember  and  commemorate  must  still  be  gratified, 
and  in  the  same  way  by  the  arbitrary  designation  of 
certam  times  as  sacred  to  the  memory  of  certain 
persons.  This  propensity  is  not  confined  to  civil 
history,  but  extends  to  that  of  the  church,  and  of 
religion.  Or  rather,  it  is  here  that  it  especially  dis- 
plays itself,  as  in  its  favourite  and  chosen  field.  The 
civic  calendar  of  patriots  and  heroes  is  a  meager 
catalogue,  compared  with  the  ecclesiastical  calendar 
of  saints  and  martyi's.  Some  have  usur23ed  a  place 
there  whose  pretensions  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
demonstrate  ;  but  I  do  not  know  that  Lot's  wife  has 
ever  found  a  place  in  any  calendar.     And  yet,  this  is 


LUKE  17,  32.  125 

the  only  case  in  which  a  solemn  and  exj)i'ess  divine 
command  can  be  appealed  to.  Of  patriarchs  and 
prophets,  of  apostles  and  martyrs,  there  is  not  one, 
— no,  not  even  Abraham  or  Moses,  not  even  Paul  or 
Stephen — of  whom  Christ  is  recorded  to  have  said 
what  Lnke  describes  him  in  the  text  as  saying  of  a 
nameless  sinner  in  a  half-forgotten  age,  "  Kemember 
Lot's  wife !  " 

The  singular  prominence  tlms  given  to  an  otherwise 
obscnre  and  nnimporant  character  in  sacred  history, 
may  serve  at  least  to  justify  a  brief  inquiry  how  and 
why  the  exhortation  is  to  be  complied  with.  In  other 
words,  what  is  there  in  the  case  of  Lofs  wife  to 
be  thus  remembered  ;  and,  of  what  use  can  the 
recollection  be  to  us  ?  These  are  the  two  points 
wliich  I  now  propose  to  make  the  subject  of  dis- 
course : 

I.  What  is  there  to  remember  in  the  case  of  Lot's 
wife  ? 

II.  Of  what  use  can  the  recollection  be  to  us  ? 

I.  In  considering  the  first  point,  we  naturally  turn 
to  other  cases  of  historical  commemoration,  and  recall 
the  circumstances  upon  wliich  the  attention  is  usually 
fastened  as  the  things  to  be  remembered.  These  are 
essentially  the  same  in  every  case,  that  is  to  say,  there 
is  a  limited  number  of  particulars,  within  which  the 
biography  of  all  men  may  be  circumscribed.  But 
these  are  indefinitely  varied  in  their  combinations 
and  proportions.  The  entire  interest  of  some  lives  is 
concentred  in  the  birth  and  hereditary  honours  of 
the  subject.     This  is  notoriously  true  as  to  the  vulgar 


126  SEKMONS. 

herd  of  kings  and  queens,  and  nobles,  N^liose  name 
and  titles  are  tlieir  whole  biography.  In  other  cases, 
of  a  higher  order,  this  element  of  greatness  is  entirely 
wanting.  The  name  is  a  new  name,  and  the  birth 
obscure.  Whatever  interest  attaches  to  the  person  is 
the  fruit  of  his  own  doings,  whether  martial,  intel- 
lectual, or  civil.  There  are  others  where  the  eminence 
arises  neither  from  position  nor  achievement,  but 
from  character  This  is  the  charm  of  those  biogra- 
phies, in  which  a  historical,  and  even  a  poetical — I 
might  perhaps  say  romantic — ^interest  is  thrown  around 
characters  who  never  rose  above  a  private  station ; 
who,  beyond  a  little  circle  of  acquaintances,  were 
scarcely  known  to  live  until  they  died,  but  who  now 
live  in  the  memory  and  hearts  of  thousands,  and, 
when  every  meteor  of  profane  celebrity  is  quenched 
in  oblivion,  shall  still  shine  in  the  firmament  of  his- 
tory "  as  stars  for  ever  and  ever." 

These  are  the  customary  topics  of  remembrance 
and  commemoration,  illustrious  birth,  splendid  achieve- 
ment, and  surpassing  excellence  not  necessarily  exclu- 
sive of  each  other,  but  alas '  too  seldom  found  in  com- 
bination, that  among  the  "  bright  particular  stars  " 
of  human  history,  there  are  few  constellations,  and 
but  one  stupendous  galaxy.  Let  us  now  apply  this 
measure  to  the  solitary  case  which  our  Saviour  has 
consigned  to  everlasting  remembrance,  and  what  is 
the  result  ?  In  which,  or  in  how  many,  of  these  sev- 
eral respects  was  Lot's  wife  entitled  to  be  snatched 
from  oblivion  ?  "Was  it  birth,  or  name,  good  works, 
or  evil  deeds,  extraordinary  piety  or  unexampled 
wickedness  that  gives  her  this  pre-eminence  ?     Kamo 


LUKE  17,  32.  127 

did  I  say  ?  Her  very  name  has  been  forgotten  in  the 
record  that  bears  witness  to  the  fact  of  her  existence. 
Of  her  birth  we  know  nothing,  and  can  learn  noth- 
ing, absohitely  nothing,  from  a  history  distinguished 
from  all  others  by  the  fulness  and  minuteness  of  its 
genealogical  details.  We  know  who  Abraham's  wife 
and  I^ahor's  wife  were,  not  their  names  only,  but  their 
parentage ;  but  Lot's  wife,  so  far  as  the  inspired  re- 
cord goes,  is  without  father  and  without  mother,  her 
birth  a  secret,  and  her  name  a  blank  ! 

There  are  cases,  however,  in  the  sacred  history, 
where  no  small  interest  attaches  to  the  character  and 
deeds  of  those  whose  names  are  not  recorded.  With- 
out going  beyond  the  field  of  female  biography,  we 
may  cite  as  examples,  the  widows  of  Sarepta  and  of 
Shunem,  the  woman  of  Samaria,  and  several  others 
for  whom  or  upon  whom  our  Lord  wrought  miracles 
of  healing.  But  in  this  case  the  anonymous  and  un- 
known subject  of  commemoration  is  revealed  to  us  by 
no  description,  no  characteristic  actions,  no  glimpses 
of  her  private  and  domestic  life.  She  is  not  even 
mentioned  in  the  history  of  Lot's  migrations  or  of  his 
residence  in  Sodom.  She  is  not  included  in  the  ques- 
tion of  the  angels  who  were  sent  to  save  him  :  "  Hast 
thou  any  here  besides  ?  son-in-law,  or  sons,  or  daugh- 
ters, or  whatsoever  thou  hast  in  the  city  ; "  unless  this 
last  expression  be  intended  to  apply  to  her.  She  ap- 
pears for  the  first  and  almost  for  tlie  last  time  in  the 
brief  but  vivid  picture  of  that  hurried  and  compulsory 
escape,  when  Lot  still  lingered,  and  "  the  men  laid 
hold  upon  his  hand,  and  upon  the  hand  of  his  wife^ 
and  upon  the  hand  of  his  two  daughters,  the  Lord 


128  SERMONS. 

being  merciful  unto  liim,  and  they  brought  hiji  fortli^ 
and  set  him  without  the  city,  and  said,  Escape  for  thy 
life,  looh  not  'behind  thee,  neither  stay  thou  in  all  the 
plain,  escape  to  the  mountain,  lest  thou  be  consumed." 
This  is  one-half  of  the  history  of  Lot's  wife,  and  tlie 
whole  of  it  contains  no  hint  of  her  origin  or  educa- 
tion, course  of  life,  or  character,  except  so  far  as  this 
may  be  gathered  from  her  end.  It  seems,  then,  that 
in  this  case,  thus  commended  to  perpetual  remem- 
brance by  our  Lord  him&elf,  every  one  of  the  accus- 
tomed grounds  or  reasons  for  remembering  is  abso- 
lutely wanting. 

Is  this  blank,  then,  to  be  filled  up  by  indulging 
the  imagination,  by  investing  this  anonymous,  mys- 
terious figure  with  fictitious  qualities,  and  making  her 
the  centre  of  poetical  associations  ?  Certainly  not. 
We  can  remember  only  what  we  know.  Tlie  com- 
mand is  not  to  imagine  or  invent,  but  to  remember. 
And  in  this  case  we  can  only  know  what  is  recorded. 
Our  Saviour  evidently  takes  for  granted  that  his 
hearers  knew  the  fact  which  he  commands  them  to 
remember.  They  could  know  it  only  from  the  narra- 
tive in  Genesis.  Had  any  thing  beyond  this  been  re- 
quired, it  would  be  expressed,  as  in  other  cases  where 
our  Saviour  and  his  followers  reveal  something  not 
contained  in  the  Old  Testament.  Such  additions  to . 
the  history  are  the  names  of  the  Egyptian  sorcerers, 
Janncs  and  Jambres,  not  recorded  by  Moses,  but  dis- 
closed by  Paul  to  Timothy,  and  Jude's  citation  of  the 
prophecy  of  Enoch,  and  of  Michael's  contest  with  the 
devil  for  the  body  of  Moses.  But  in  this  case  there 
is  no  such  addition,  no  completion  of  the  history,  but 


LUKE  17,  32.  129 

a  simple  reference  to  what  was  already  known  be- 
cause it  had  for  ages  been  on  record.  It  was  to  some 
familiar  and  notorious  fact  that  Christ  alluded,  Avhen 
he  said  to  his  disci^^les,  "  Eemember  Lot's  wife  !  " 

This  familiar  and  notorious  fact  could  not  be  the 
one  already  cited,  namely,  the  angelic  intervention 
and  deliverance  of  Lot's  wife,  with  her  husband  and 
her  children,  from  the  doomed  city,  because  this  was 
not  peculiar  or  remarkable  enough  to  be  appealed  to 
as  a  great  historical  example.  Thus  far,  her  experi- 
ence was  coincident  with  that  of  others  more  entitled 
to  remembrance.  Had  miraculous  deliverance  been 
all,  the  wife  of  'Noah,  might  have  seemed  to  have  a 
better  claim  than  Lot's  to  this  distinction.  We  are 
therefore  under  the  necessity  of  going  a  step  further, 
and  considering  the  other  half  of  her  recorded  his- 
tory, as  furnishing  the  lesson  which  our  Lord  incul- 
cates in  the  text.  That  other  half  is  all  comprised  in 
a  single  verse  of  Genesis,  the  twenty-sixth  of  the  nine- 
teenth chapter.  "  His  wife  looked  back  from  behind 
him,  and  became  a  pillar  of  salt."  So  soon  and  so 
sudden  is  licr  disappearance  from  the  stage  of  history. 
She  only  appears  long  enough  to  disappear  again. 
She  is  like  a  spectre,  rising  from  the  earth,  moving 
slowly  across  our  field  of  vision,  and  then  vanishing 
away.  Hence  her  history  is  all  concentred  in  a  single 
point,  and  that  the  last.  It  has  no  beginning  and  no 
middle,  but  an  end,  a  fearful  end.  Its  course  is  like 
that  of  tlie  black  and  silent  train,  to  whicli  the  match 
is  at  last  applied,  and  it  ends  in  a  flash  and  an  explo- 
sion. Our  first  view  of  Lot's  wife  is  afforded  by  the 
light  of  the  sulphureous  flames  already  bursting  from 

VOL.  I. — G* 


IgO  SERMONS. 

the  battlements  and  lioiise-tops  of  tlie  reprobate  city  ; 
our  last  view,  tlie  moment  after,  by  the  same  fires  as 
tliey  mount  to  lieaven  and  light  up  the  whole  hori- 
zon, revealing  among  many  old  familiar  objects,  one 
never  seen  before,  a  pillar  of  salt  upon  the  road  to 
Zoar.  Tliat  very  pillar  was  the  thing  which  the  dis- 
ciples called  to  mind  when  Jesus  said,  "Remember 
Lot's  wife." 

But,  my  hearers,  there  are  multitudes  of  other 
cases  upon  record,  where  the  whole  interest  of  a  life- 
time is  concentred  in  the  hour  of  death.  Some 
scarcely  seem  to  live  until  they  come  to  die.  Not 
only  in  the  case  of  soldiers  slain  in  battle,  or  of  mar- 
tyi's  dying  at  the  stake,  but  on  many  a  lowly  and 
neglected  death-bed,  a  new  character  reveals  itself, 
new  powers  of  mind,  new  dispositions  and  aflections, 
as  if  a  life-time  had  been  needed  to  mature  the  char- 
acter, and  death  to  make  it  visible.  It  is  not  there- 
fore merely  in  this  circumstance  tliat  we  must  seek 
the  grand  peculiarity  of  that  event  to  which  our  Lord 
directs  the  thoughts  of  his  disciples.  As  it  was  not 
her  escape  from  Sodom  that  made  Lot's  wife  a  per- 
petual lesson  and  memorial  to  mankind,  so  it  is  not 
the  extraordinary  concentration  of  her  history  in  one 
point,  and  that  point  the  last,  for  this,  as  I  have  just 
said,  may  be  seen  in  other  cases.  I  proceed  directly 
therefore  to  point  out  the  three  particulars  in  which 
her  end  was  so  peculiar  as  to  render  it  a  fit  example 
for  the  purpose  which  our  Saviour  had  in  view  when 
he  told  his  disciples  to  remember  her.  In  doing  this, 
I  sliall,  of  course,  make  no  appeal  to  your  imagina- 


LUKE  17,  82.  131 

tion,  but  confine  myself  with  rigour  to  tlie  brief  and 
plain  terms  of  the  history. 

1.  The  first  distinctive  feature  in  the  case  of  Lot's 
wife  is,  that  she  was  almost  saved.  The  cases  are 
innumerable,  no  doubt,  in  which  men  have  been  de- 
stroyed when  apparently  on  the  very  verge  of  deliver- 
ance. But  the  cases  must  be  few,  very  few,  if  any, 
where  the  alternation  was  so  rapid  and  terrific,  where 
the  subject  passed  so  quickly  through  the  startling 
vicissitudes  of  life  from  the  dead,  and  death  in  the 
midst  of  life.  First  entire  security ;  then  awful  and 
apparently  inevitable  danger  ;  then  miraculous  deliv- 
erance ;  then  sudden  death.  The  point  to  which  I 
would  direct  your  attention  first,  is  the  extraordinary, 
unexpected,  and,  to  all  appearance,  certain  and  com- 
plete deliverance,  which  Lot's  wife  had  experienced. 
In  prospect  and  in  expectation  she  was  saved  already, 
and  in  actual  experience  she  was  almost  saved.  The 
burning  city  was  behind ;  she  had  been  thrust  out 
from  it  by  angelic  hands  ;  her  husband  and  her  chil- 
dren at  her  side  ;  the  chosen  refuge  not  far  ofi",  perhaps 
in  sight ;  the  voice  of  the  avenger  and  deliverer  still 
ringing  in  her  ears,  "  Escape  for  thy  life,  look  not  be- 
hind thee,  stay  not  in  all  the  plain,  escape  to  the  moun- 
tain, lest  thou  be  consumed."  "With  such  facilities  and 
such  inducements  to  escape,  with  her  family  on  one 
side,  and  her  saviour  on  the  other,  Sodom  behind  and 
Zoar  in  front;  my  hearers,  who  would  not  have 
thought,  as  she  thought,  that  Lot's  wife  was  saved. 
Had  she  been  left  behind  to  perish  in  the  flames,  tha 
suicidal  victim  of  her  unbelief,  her  end  would  have 
resembled  that  of  thousands,  and  our  Lord  would  not 


122  SERMONS. 

have  told  us  to  remember  her,  as  if  cne  oiii  of  the 
multitude  consumed  iu  that  hot  furnace  were  entitled 
to  be  any  more  remembered  than  the  rest.  But  when 
actually  brought  without  the  gates,  perhaps  against 
her  will,  and  by  such  hands  too,  and  already  on  hei 
way  to  the  appointed  place  of  refuge,  with  the  cry  of 
the  angel  and  the  cra,clding  of  the  flames  both  impel 
ling  her  onwards  ;  surely  she  was  almost  saved. 

2.  But  secondly,  though  almost  saved,  she  perished 
after  all.  What  I  wish  you  to  observe  is  not  the  bare 
fact  that  she  perished  ;  so  have  millions,  both  before 
and  since,  but- that  she  perished  as  she  did,  and  xolvere 
she  did.  Perdition  is  indeed  perdition,  come  as  it 
may,  and  there  is  no  need  of  fathoming  the  various 
depths  of  an  abyss,  of  what  is  bottomless.  But  to  the 
eye  of  the  spectator,  and  it  may  bt3  to  the  memory  of 
the  lost,  there  is  an  awful  aggravation  even  of  what 
seems  to  be  incapable  of  variation  or  increase  in  the 
preceding  and  accompanying  circumstances  of  the 
final  plunge.  He  who  sinks  in  the  sea  without  the 
hope  or  opportunity  of  rescue  may  be  sooner  drowned 
than  he  who  for  a  moment  enjoys  both,  but  to  the 
heart  of  an  observer  how  much  more  sickening  and 
appalling  is  the  end  of  him  who  disappears  with  the 
rope  or  plank  of  safety  within  reach,  or  in  his  very 
hand,  or  of  him  who  slips  into  the  bubbling  waters 
from  the  surface  of  the  rock  which,  with  his  failing 
strength,  he  had  just  reached,  and  on  which  for  a 
moment  of  delicious  illusion  he  had  wept  to  imgaine 
himself  safe  at  last!  The  same  essentially,  though 
less  affecting,  is  the  case  of  those  who  escape  one 
danger  only  to  be  swallowed  by  another,  like  the  sea- 


LUKE  17,  S2.  -133 

man  who  liad  braved  all  the  chances  of  war  and  the 
diseases  of  a  sickly  climate,  only  to  be  wrecked  as  he 
was  reaching  home  ;  or  the  case  of  the  soldier  who 
escapes  the  edge  of  the  sword  on  many  a  battle-field, 
and  in  many  an  "  imminent  deadly  breach,"  only  to 
die  a  more  ignoble  death,  as  the  victim  of  disease  or 
accident.  Of  all  such  cases  in  their  infinite  variety 
of  circumstances  and  degrees,  the  great  historical  type 
is  that  of  Lot's  wife,  of  her  who  was  almost  saved 
yet  not  saved,  the  article  and  crisis  of  whose  safety 
and  destruction  were  almost  identical,  of  her  who  per- 
ished in  the  moment  of  deliverance  ! 

3.  The  third  distinctive  feature  in  the  case  of  Lot's 
wife  is,  that  her  destruction  was  so  ordered  as  to  make 
her  a  memorial  and  a  warning  to  all  others.  Tou 
may  smile  at  the  credulity  of  those  who  imagine  that 
the  monumental  pillar  is  still  extant,  and  may  yet  be 
identified.  Believe,  if  you  will,  in  the  pride  of  sci- 
ence, or  the  pride  of  ignorance,  for  they  are  near  akin, 
and  often  coincide  in  their  conclusions,  that  this  is  a 
strong  oriental  hyperbole,  a  metaphorical  description 
either  of  perpetual  remembrance  or  of  a  natural  tran- 
sient eflfect.  Even  supposing  that  the  pillar  of  salt  had 
an  ideal  existence,  or,  that  if  real,  it  bore  witness  only 
for  a  few  days  to  the  eyes  of  all  who  passed  by,  God 
has  re-erected  it  forever  in  his  word,  Tlie  pillar  of 
salt  may  have  vanished  from  the  shore  of  the  dead 
sea,  but  it  is  standing  on  the  field  of  sacred  history. 
The  Old  and  New  Testaments  both  give  it  place,  and 
as  it  once  spoke  to  the  eye  of  the  aftVighted  Canaanite 
or  Hebrew,  who  revisited  that  scene  of  desolation,  so 
it  now  speaks  to  the  memory  and  conscience  of  the 


134:  SERMONS. 

countless  multitudes  who  read  or  hear  the  law  and 
gospel,  saying  to  them,  and  to  us  among  the  number, 
as  our  Lord  said  of  old  to  his  disciples,  "  Remember 
Lot's  wife !  "  Remember  the  mysterious  and  awful  end 
of  one  who  seemed  miraculously  saved  from  a  miracu- 
lous destruction,  only  to  meet  it  in  another  form  and  in 
another  place,  the  very  threshold  of  deliverance,  con- 
verting her  at  once  into  a  pillar  of  salt,  and  a  perpetual 
memento  of  the  "  goodness  and  severity  of  God." 

11.  This  brings  us,  by  a  natural  ti*ansition,  to  the 
second  point  which  I  proposed  for  your  consideration, 
namely,  the  purpose  to  be  answered,  or  the  end  to  be 
attained,  bv  our  remembering  Lot's  wife.  It  is  no 
unreasonable  question,  if  propounded  in  a  proper 
spirit,  free  from  petulant  levity  or  skeptical  presump- 
tion, what  have  we  to  do  with  this  remote  event  of 
patriarchal  history,  this  incident  attending  the  de- 
struction of  a  place  whose  very  site  has  been  expunged 
from  the  surface  of  the  earth  ? 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  rest  assured  that  the 
narrative  was  not  recorded  for  its  own  sake,  or  to 
gratify  a  spirit  of  historical  inquiry ;  because  this 
would  render  unaccountable  the  fewness  of  the  facts 
recorded,  and  still  more  so  the  emphatic  exhortation 
of  our  Saviour  to  remember  this  particular  event. 
The  only  satisfactory  solution  is  afforded  by  assuming 
that  the  case  of  Lot's  wife  was  recorded  as  a  type  of 
God's  providential  dispensations  ;  or,  in  other  words, 
that  the  event  may  be  repeated  in  the  experience  of 
others,  not  in  its  outward  form  and  circumstances,  but 
in  its  essential  individuality.  This  supposition  is  not 
only  reasonable  in  itself,  and  recommended  by  the 


LUKE  17,  32.  135 

readiness  witliwliicli  it  solves  the  doubt  proposed;  but 
it  may  be  directly  proved  by  the  example  of  our 
Saviour  in  applying  this  historical  example  to  a  dif- 
ferent case,  to  wit,  the  siege  and  destruction  of  Jeru- 
salem. After  warning  his  disciples  against  such  se 
curity  and  self  indulgence  as  prevailed  before  the 
flood  and  the  destruction  of  Sodom,  and  commanding 
them  "  in  that  day  "  not  to  delay  their  flight  for  what 
seemed  to  be  the  most  necessary  purposes,  he  adds, 
"  Remember  Lot's  wife !  "  This  can  only  mean  that 
similar  effects  may  be  expected  from  like  causes  ;  that 
the  course  of  divine  providence  is  governed  by  fixed 
laws ;  and  that  the  same  succession  of  events  may 
therefore  reappear  ;  or,  as  our  Lord  himself  propounds 
the  principle  of  application,  in  the  conclusion  of  this 
same  discourse,  when  the  disciples  asked  him,  "  Where, 
Lord?  and  he  said  unto  them..  Wheresoever  the  body 
is,  there  will  the  eagles  be  gathered  together."  It 
thus  appears  that,  far  from  being  forbidden  to  apply 
the  text  to  other  cases  than  the  one  which  our  Saviour 
had  immediately  in  view,  we  are  directly  tauglit,  by 
his  precept  and  example,  to  consider  it  as  applicable 
to  ourselves  and  others,  and  to  spiritual  no  less  than 
to  outward  dangers.  For,  if  they  who  were  liable  to 
be  involved  in  a  great  temporal  calamity  might  be 
warned  by  the  example  of  Lot's  wife  against  security 
and  rash  delay,  and  taught  that  men  may  perish  in 
what  seems  to  be  the  very  moment  of  deliverance, 
how  much  more  conclusive  is  the  same  example  as  a 
warning  against  fatal  security  and  procrastination 
with  respect  to  a  danger  as  much  more  awful  than 
the  one  in  question  as  the  soul  is  more  precious  than 


136  SERMONS. 

the  body,  or  eternitj  than  time;  and,  acccrdinglj, 
with  how  much  greater  emphasis  may  they  who  are 
exposed  to  this  tremendous  risk,  be  counselled  and 
exhorted  to  "  remember  Lot's  wife." 

I  proceed,  then,  in  the  same  order  as  before,  to 
point  out  the  particular  respects  in  which  the  strange 
and  fearful  end  of  Lot's  wife  may  be  realized  in  our 
experience,  which,  if  it  can  be  done,  will  be  the  best 
and  most  effective  application  of  the  text,  as  an  ex- 
hortation to  remember  her  and  ]3rofit  by  her  terrible 
example. 

1.  The  first  point  of  resemblance  is,  that  we,  like 
Lot's  wife,  may  be  almost  saved.  This  is  true  in  a 
twofold  sense.  It  is  true  of  outward  oj)portunities. 
It  is  also  true  of  inward  exercises.  If  a  heathen,  who 
has  just  been  made  acquainted  with  the  method  of 
salvation,  and  who  sees  himself  surrounded  by  innu- 
merable multitudes  still  strangers  to  it,  could  be  sud- 
denly transported  into  this  community,  and  see  what 
you  see,  hear  what  you  hear,  and  appreciate  your 
multiplied  facilities  for  knowing  what  salvation  is, 
and  for  securing  it,  he  would,  of  course  and  of  necessi- 
t}^,  consider  you  as  almost  saved.  Regarding  heathen- 
ism as  the  Sodom,  from  which  he  has  just  escaped, 
and  from  which  we  have  so  long  been  delivered,  he 
would  hardly  be  deterred  from  looking  upon  us,  not 
as  almost,  but  as  altogether  saved.  The  intellectual 
and  social  influence  of  Christianity,  apart  from  its  sav- 
ing power,  the  refinement,  order,  and  intelligence  pro- 
duced by  it,  even  in  the  lowest  and  the  most  degraded 
classes  of  our  people,  as  compared  with  heathens, 
would  inevitably  lead  at  first  to  false  conclusions  in 


LUKE  17,  32.  137 

the  mind  of  siicli  a  stranger,  and  constrain  liim  to  cry 
ont,  These  people,  although  not  yet  in  lieavcn,  are 
already  saved ;  and  in  reference  even  to  that  final 
consummation,  they  are  almost  saved  ! 

We  know,  my  hearers,  how  mistaken  such  an  in- 
ference would  be,  and  how  much  the  fair  appearances 
in  question  may  resemble  the  smooth  surface  of  that 
hollow  and  bituminous  soil  before  its  crust  was  riven 
and  its  secret  fires  enkindled  by  tlie  lightning  of  God's 
wrath.  You  need  not  be  reminded  how  far  these  ex- 
ternal advantages,  precious  as  they  are  in  themselves 
and  in  their  temporal  eflects,  may  fall  short  of  secur- 
ing the  salvation  of  the  thousands  who  enjoy  them. 
In  a  word,  you  know,  although  a  heathen  convert 
might  be  ignorant,  that  men  may  have  all  this  and 
more  in  actual  possession,  yet  be  neither  almost  nor 
altoo-ether  saved.  You  know  how  the  deceitful  sur- 
face  may  be  agitated  and  convulsed  by  outbreaks  of 
iniquity  long  cherished  and  concealed  beneath  the  re- 
finements and  restraints  of  social  discipline,  and  even 
where  the  general  decorum  remains  unimpaired,  you 
know  how  many  individuals  may  go  down  from  the 
midst  of  it,  like  Korah  and  his  company,  if  not  into 
the  libertine's  or  drunkard's  grave,  at  least  into  the 
death-shade  of  a  hopeless  eternity.  Yet,  even  here, 
and  even  to  ourselves,  there  is  a  sense,  in  which  many 
who  are  not  safe,  might  seem  almost  saved.  If  we 
could  read  the  hearts  of  some  who  hear  the  Gospel, 
and  amidst  the  unbelief  and  opposition  to  the  truth 
which  still  prevail  there,  mark  the  strong  though  in- 
effectual desires  for  something  better,  and  the  nascent 
resolutions  to  repent  and  to  believe  which  are  perpet- 


J33  SERMONS. 

iially  surging  Tip  in  tlie  commotions  of  that  sea  wliich 
cannot  rest,  we  should  be  tempted  to  say,  surely  these 
struoco-liiip;  souls  are  almost  saved.  Yes,  if  we  knew 
how  often  childish  levity,  and  stoical  indifference,  and 
proud  contempt,  and  even  seeming  spite,  are  but  the 
mask  of  an  interior  stiife  which  the  subject  would 
conceal  not  only  from  his  neighbors  but  himself,  we 
should  be  still  more  disposed  to  say  of  such,  that  they 
were  almost  saved  ;  or,  to  say  to  them,  in  the  words 
of  Christ  himself,  "  Thou  art  not  far  from  the  kingdom 
of  heaven." 

The  grand  mistake  to  which  we  are  exposed  in  all 
such  cases  is  the  error  of  regarding  this  approach  to 
true  faith  and  repentance  as  peculiarly  a  state  of 
safety.  In  itself,  it  is  a  state  of  the  highest  interest 
and  moment.  In  itself,  it  is  incomparably  better  than 
a  state  of  total  opposition  or  of  absolute  insensibility. 
But  in  reference  to  the  future,  it  is  not  a  safe  state, 
and  the  longer  it  continues  the  less  safe  it  is.  It  is 
not  safe,  because  it  is  a  critical  juncture,  a  transition 
state,  a  turning  point,  on  which  the  future  may  be 
finally  suspended.  It  is  safe  to  enter,  but  not  safe  to 
rest  in.  The  sooner  we  are  brought  to  it  the  better, 
and  the  sooner  we  escape  from  it  the  better,  if  we 
only  do  so  in  the  right  direction.  For  alas,  there  are 
two  ways  in  which  the  doubt  may  be  resolved  and 
the  suspense  determined, — by  advancing  or  receding, 
going  right  or  going  wrong,  escaping  to  Zoar  or  turn- 
ing: back  to  Sodom. 

2.  For  the  state  described  is,  after  all,  like  that  of 
Lot's  wife,  when,  against  her  will,  she  had  been 
Drought  out  of  the  city.     She  seemed  to  be  beyond 


LUKE  17,  32.  139 

the  reach  of  all  immediate  danger.  She  was  follow- 
ing safe  guides,  and  in  the  right  direction.  Yet  she 
looked  back,  and  slie  perished  !  So  have  thousands. 
So  may  you.  This  is  a  second  point  of  resemblance. 
Those  who  are  almost  saved  may  perish — fearfully 
perish — finally  perish — perish  in  reach,  in  sight  of 
heaven — yes,  at  the  very  threshold  of  salvation.  It 
is  -vain  to  quarrel  with  this  fearful  possibility  and 
risk.  It  is  vain  to  say,  are  we  not  convinced  of  our 
danger  ?  So  was  Lot's  wife.  Are  we  not  escaping 
from  it  ?  So  was  she.  Are  we  not  near  the  place  of 
refup'e  ?  So  was  slie.  But  she  looked  back — no  mat- 
ter  with  what  motive ;  she  looked  back — no  matter 
how  long  or  how  short  a  time,  though  it  were  but 
for  a  moment ;  she  looked  back — whetlier  from  curi- 
osity or  lingering  desire  to  return,  we  are  not  told, 
we  need  not  care,  we  only  know  that  she  looked  back 
— she  violated  the  divine  command — abjured  the  only 
hope  of  safety — and  you  know  the  rest.  Whatever 
looking  back  may  have  denoted  in  the  type,  we  know 
full  well  what  may  answer  to  it  in  the  antitype. 
Whatever  may  have  tempted  Lot's  wife  to  look  back, 
we  know  the  multiplied  temptations  which  lead  sin- 
ners to  do  likewise.  And  this  terrible  example  cries 
aloud  to  those  who  are  assailed  by  lingering  desires 
for  enjoyments  once  abandoned,  or  by  skeptical  mis- 
givings, or  by  evil  habits  unsubdued,  or  by  disgust 
at  the  restraints  of  a  religious  life,  or  by  an  impious 
desperation  such  as  sometimes  urges  us  to  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die ;  to  all  such  this  ter- 
rible example  cries  aloud,  Ecmember  Lot's  wife — 
her  escape,  and  her  destruction.     However  different 


140  SERMONS. 

your  outward  situation,  yet  remember  her,  remember 
her,  for  if,  like  her,  you  are  the  destined  prey  of 
God's  avenging  justice,  it  will  find  you  out,  for 
"  wheresoever  the  body  is,  thither  will  the  eagles  be 
gathered  together." 

3.  Lastly,  they  who  are,  like  Lot's  wife,  almost 
saved,  may  not  only,  like  her,  be  destroyed  in  the 
very  moment  of  deliverance,  but,  like  her,  so  destroy 
ed  as  to  afford  a  monumental  warning  to  all  others, 
that  the  patience  and  long-suifering  of  God  are  not 
eternal.  Looking  back  to  the  cities  of  the  plain,  they 
may  not  only  be  involved  in  their  destruction,  but, 
as  "  pillars  of  salt,"  record  it  and  attest  it  to  succeed- 
ino;  generations.  To  a  certain  extent  this  is  true  of 
all  who  perish.  God  has  made  all  things  for  himself, 
even  the  wicked  for  the  day  of  evil.  They  who  will 
not,  as  "  vessels  of  mercy,"  glorify  his  wisdom  and 
his  ffoodness,  must  and  will  "  show  his  wa-ath  and 
make  his  jjower  known,"  as  "  vessels  of  wrath  fitted 
to  destruction."  They  who  will  not  consent  to  glori- 
fy him  Avillingly  must  be  content  to  glorify  him  by 
compulsion.  This  is  true  of  all  who  perish,  and  who 
therefore  may  be  said  to  become  "  pillars  of  salt," 
standing,  like  mile-stones,  all  along  the  broad  road 
that  leadeth  to  destruction,  solemn  though  speech- 
less monitors  of  those  who  throng  it,  and  planted  even 
on  the  margin  of  that  "  great  gulf"  which  is  "  fixed" 
forever  between  heaven  and  hell.  But  in  another  and 
a  more  afi'ecting  sense,  it  may  be  said  that  they  who 
perish  with  the  very  foretaste  of  salvation  on  their 
lips,  wdio  make  shipwreck  in  the  sight  of  their  de- 
sired haven,  who  are  blasted  by  the  thunderbolt  of 


LUKE  ir,  32.  141 

vengeance  after  fleeing  from  the  city  of  destruction, 
and  amidst  their  very  journey  towards  the  phice  of 
refuge,  become  "  pillars  of  salt"  to  their  successors. 
What  a  thought  is  this,  my  hearers,  that  of  all  the 
tears  which  some  have  shed  in  seasons  of  awakening, 
and  of  all  their  prayers  and  vows  and  resolutions, 
all  their  spiritual  conflicts  and  apparent  triumphs 
over  self  and  sin,  the  only  ultimate  eff'ect  will  be  to 
leave  them  standing  by  the  wayside  as  "  pillars  of 
salt,"  memorials  of  man's  weakness  and  corruption, 
and  of  God's  most  righteous  retributions.  Are  you 
willing  to  live,  and  what  is  more,  to  die,  for  such  an 
end  as  this  ?  To  be  remembered  only  as  a  "  pillar  of 
salt,"  a  living,  dying,  yet  enduring  proof,  that  sinners 
may  be  almost  saved,  and  yet  not  saved  at  all,  that 
they  may  starve  at  the  threshold  of  a  feast,  and  die 
of  thirst  at  the  fountain  of  salvation. 

It  is  not  unusual  for  those  who  have  outliveC 
their  first  impressions  of  religion,  and  successfully  re- 
sisted the  approaches  of  conviction,  to  subside  into  & 
state  of  artificial  calmness,  equally  removed  from 
their  original  insensibility  and  from  the  genuine  com- 
posure of  a  true  faith  and  repentance.  As  yon 
feel  this  new  sense  of  tranquillity  creep  over  your 
excited  senses,  assuaging  your  exasperated  con- 
science, you  may  secretly  congratulate  yourself  upon 
a  change  of  feeling  so  much  for  the  better.  But  you 
may  not  be  aware  that  the  relief  which  you  expe- 
rience is  similar  to  that  which  often  follows  long 
exposure  to  intense  cold,  when  the  sense  of  acute  suf- 
fering begins  to  be  succeeded  by  a  grateful  numb- 
ness, and  the  faculties,  long  excited  by  resistance,  to 


■^^2  SERMONS. 

be  lulled  into  a  drowsy  languor,  far  from  being  pain- 
ful to  the  sense,  but  as  surely  the  precursor  of  pa- 
ralysis and  dissolution,  as  if  the  limbs  were  already 
stiffened  and  the  process  of  corruption  even  visibly 
begun.  Or  the  change  of  feeling  now  in  question, 
may  resemble  that  which  came  upon  Lot's  wife  as 
she  began  to  lose  her  consciousness  of  pain  and  pleas- 
ure beneath  that  saline  incrustation  which  enchained 
her  limbs,  suppressed  her  breath,  and  stopped  the 
circulation  of  her  life's  blood.  Was  that  an  enviable 
feeling,  think  you,  even  supposing  it  to  be  exclusive 
of  all  suffering  ?  Or  could  you  consent  to  purchase 
such  immunity  from  pain  by  being  turned  into  a  pil- 
lar of  salt  ? 

It  is  not  the  least  affectmg  circumstance  about  the 
strange  event  which  has  afforded  us  a  theme  for  med- 
itation, that  although  Lot's  wife  was  fearfully  de- 
stroyed, and  at  the  very  moment  when  she  seemed  to 
be  beyond  the  reach  of  danger  ;  we  have  no  intima- 
tion that  the  lightning  struck  her,  or  that  the  fires 
wliich  they  kindled  scorched  her,  or  that  the  waters 
of  the  dead  sea,  as  they  rushed  into  their  new  bed, 
overwhelmed  her,  or  that  any  other  violence  befell 
her.  But  we  read  that  she  looked  back  and  became 
a  pillar  of  salt,  perhaps  without  a  pang  of  "  corporal 
sufferance,"  perhaps  without  the  consciousness  of  out- 
ward change ;  one  moment  full  of  life,  the  next  a 
white  and  sparkling,  cold  and  lifeless  mass.  If  this, 
my  hearer,  is  the  death  which  you  would  choose  to 
die  in  soul  or  body,  then  look  back  to  Sodom,  stretch 
your  hands  towards  it,  and  receive  the  death  which 
comes  to  meet  you  in  your  cold  embrace.    Turn  back, 


LUKE  17,  32.  1^2 

turn  back,  if  yon  wonld  fain  become  a  pillar  of  salt. 
If  not,  on,  on  !  Escape  for  your  life  !  Look  not  be- 
hind you  !  Stay  not  in  all  the  plain  !  Escape  to  the 
mountain,  lest  you  be  consumed  !  And  though  you 
feel  a  secret  drawing  towards  the  scenes  which  you 
have  left,  yield  not  to  it,  but  let  memory  do  the  work 
of  sight.  Instead  of  turning  back  to  perish  without 
hope,  let  it  suffice  you  to  Remembek  Lot's  w^ife  ! 


vin. 

1  John  3,  2. — It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be. 

These  words  admit  of  being  taken  either  in  a  wide 
and  compreliensiye,  or  a  more  restricted  and  specific 
sense,  as  referring  to  a  blessed  immortality  beyond 
the  grave,  or  to  futurity  in  general,  including  the  as 
yet  unknown  vicissitudes  belonging  to  the  present 
state  of  our  existence.  It  is  in  this  larger  application 
of  the  language,  and  indeed  with  special  reference  to 
a  proximate  futurity,  that  I  invite  yoiu-  attention  to 
the  fact  that  "  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we 
shall  be." 

There  is  nothing,  in  the  actual  condition  of  man- 
kind, or  in  the  method  of  God's  dispensations  towards 
them,  more  sm-prising  than  the  fact,  that,  while  the 
very  constitution  of  the  mind  impels  it  to  survey  the 
future  with  intense  solicitude,  futurity  itself  is  hidden 
by  a  veil,  which  can  neither  be  penetrated  nor  with- 
drawn. The  light  which  glimmers  through  this  veil 
is  strong  enough  to  show  that  something  lies  beyond 
it,  and  the  demonstration  is  completed  by  the  mis- 
shapen but  gigantic  shadows  which  occasionally  flit 
across  its  surface ;  but  the  size,  and  shape,  and  rela 


1  JOHN  3,  2.  145 

tive  position  of  the  objects  thus  beheld  ia  shadow,  are 
completely  concealed  from  view.  It  is  in  vain  that 
every  artificial  aid  to  the  infirmity  of  sense  is  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  tantalizing  spectacle  ;  the  light,  the 
shadows,  are  still  visible  and  nothing  more,  except 
that  providential  barrier,  which  at  the  same  time 
brings  the  shadows  to  our  view  and  makes  the  sub- 
stances invisible. 

This  seeming  contradiction  between  Providence  and 
Nature,  between  human  instinct  and  divine  adminis- 
tration, is  exemplified  with  perfect  uniformity,  in  all 
parts  of  the  world  and  all  the  periods  of  its  history. 
It  matters  not  how  little  or  how  much  is  known  as  to 
the  present  or  the  past ;  men  everywhere  and  always 
long  to  know  the  futm-e.  The  historian  in  whose 
memory  events  are  gathered,  as  in  one  vast  store- 
house ;  the  philosopher,  who  looks  into  the  actual 
condition  of  all  nature  with  a  view  at  once  minute 
and  comprehensive,  can  plead  no  exemption  from  the 
restless  and  solicitous  forebodings  of  the  savage,  who 
knows  nothing  of  the  past,  and  but  little  of  the  pres- 
ent, but  whose  darkened  and  confused  mind  swarms, 
as  it  were,  with  visions  of  the  future.  Not  a  form  of 
idolatry  or  false  religion  has  existed  which  did  not 
undertake  to  make  its  votaries  acquainted  with  the 
future.  This  has  always  been  regarded  as  a  necessary 
means  of  influencing  human  minds,  a  strong  proof  of 
the  universality  and  strength  of  the  original  principle. 
No  pagan  altar  ever  smoked  without  an  oracle  of 
some  kind  near  it.  The  diviner  or  the  prophet  is  in 
all  such  cases  the  companion  of  the  priest,  if  not  the 
priest  himself.  Tlie  occult  arts  of  necromancy,  sor 
VOL.  I. — 7 


146  SERMONS. 

ceiy,  and  witchcraft,  in  their  infinite  variety  of  form, 
are  integral  parts  of  one  great  superstitions  system, 
the  religion  of  fear,  in  which  ignorance  is  indevid  the 
mother  of  devotion.  While  the  African  bows  down 
before  his  Fetish,  and  the  Indian  mutters  to  his  medi- 
cine-bag, the  Turk  wears  his  talisman,  the  Egyptian 
his  amulet,  even  those  who  are  called  Christians 
sometimes  watch  the  clouds,  the  flight  of  birds,  or 
the  most  trivial  domestic  incidents,  the  breaking  of  a 
glass,  or  the  upsetting  of  a  vessel,  with  as  much  secret 
dread  as  ever  terrified  the  most  benighted  heathen ; 
nay,  even  educated  men  and  women  have  been  known, 
amidst  the  very  blaze  of  scientific  and  religious  light, 
to  steal  in  secret  to  the  haunts  of  the  conjurer  or  for- 
tune-teller, not  alway  in  jest,  but  sometimes  with  a 
studied  secrecy,  indicative  at  once  of  shame,  fear, 
misplaced  trust,  and  inexpressible  desire  to  know 
what  God,  in  wisdom  and  in  mercy,  has  decreed  shall 
not  be  known. 

The  final  cause  or  purpose  of  this  determination 
appears  obvious  enough.  If  sin  and  misery  were 
wholly  foreign  from  the  experience  of  man,  this  limi- 
tation of  his  view  might  be  complained  of  as  a  hard- 
ship or  privation.  But  since  man  is  born  to  sorrow 
and  temptation,  since  his  heart  is  deceitful  and  his 
understanding  fallible,  since  no  foreknowledge  could 
efiectually  guard  him  against  sin  or  sufiering,  without 
the  intervention  of  a  power  which  can  just  as  well  be 
exercised  without  his  knowledge  and  consent  as  with 
it ;  since  the  pains  to  be  endured  would  in  multitudes 
of  cases  be  immeasurably  aggravated  by  anticipa- 
tion, and  the  most  important  duties  often  shrunk  from 


1  JOHN  3,  2.  147 

in  despair,  if  all  the  preceding  and  accompanying 
circumstances  could  be  seen  at  once,  whenever  the 
contrary  effect  results  from  the  gradual  development 
in  slow  succession,  urging  only  one  step  in  advance, 
and  at  the  same  time  cutting  off  retreat  as  either 
shameful  or  impossible ;  for  these,  and  other  reasons 
like  these,  the  concealment  of  futurity  is  on  the  whole 
to  be  regarded  not  as  a  privation,  but  a  priceless 
mercy. 

We  have  only  to  look  back  upon  our  progress 
hitherto,  and  some  of  us,  alas,  not  far,  to  see  experi- 
mental evidence,  which  we  at  least  must  own  to  be 
conclusive,  that  in  hiding  from  us  that  which  was  be- 
fore us,  God  has  dealt  with  us  not  as  an  austere 
master  but  a  tender  parent,  knowing  well  how  much 
his  children  can  endure,  and  in  the  exercise  of  that 
omniscience  determining  not  only  how  much  they 
shall  actually  suffer,  but  how  much  of  what  they  are 
to  suffer  shall  be  known  to  them  before  their  day  of 
visitation  comes. 

But  this  part  of  God's  providential  government, 
though  eminently  merciful,  is  not  designed  exclusively 
to  spare  men  a  part  of  the  suffering  which  sin  has 
caused.  It  has  a  higher  end.  By  the  partial  dis- 
closure and  concealment  of  futurity,  continually 
acting  on  the  native  disposition  to  pry  into  it,  the 
soul  is  still  led  onward,  kept  in  an  attitude  of  expec- 
tation, and  in  spite  of  its  native  disposition  to  look 
downward,  to  go  backward,  or  to  lie  stagnant,  is  per- 
petually stimulated  to  look  up,  to  exert  itself,  and 
make  advances  in  the  right  direction.  The  immense 
advantage  of  the  impulse  thus  imparted  may  indeed 


14:8  SERMONS. 

be  lost,  and  even  made  to  aggravate  tlie  guiit  and 
"wretcliedness  of  those  wlio  disregard  it ;  but  considered 
in  itself  and  its  legitimate  effects,  it  is  one  of  the  most 
striking  proofs  of  God's  benevolence  to  man,  that 
when  the  soul  through  sin  has  acquired  a  fatal  ten- 
dency to  sink  forever  and  forever  lower,  or  to  rest 
where  even  rest  is  ruin,  instead  of  suffering  this  ten- 
dency to  operate  without  obstruction  as  he  justly 
might,  he  has  created  a  new  counteracting  influence 
and  brought  it  to  bear  mightily,  not  only  on  the  con- 
science and  the  understanding,  but  upon  instinctive 
fears,  and  the  natural  desire  of  man  to  know  what  is 
before  them. 

This  view,  partial  and  imperfect  as  it  may  be,  of 
the  divine  purpose  is  abundantly  sufficient  to  vindicate 
His  wisdom  and  His  goodness,  in  making  men  so 
curious  of  the  future  and  yet  utterly  unable  to  dis- 
cover it  except  so  far  as  he  is  pleased  to  make  it 
known.  For  I  need  hardly  say  that  this  concealment 
of  the  future,  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  from  the  nature 
of  the  case,  absolute  and  total.  In  making  us 
rational,  in  giving  us  the  power  of  comparison  and 
judgment,  and  in  teaching  us  by  the  constitution  of 
our  nature  to  infer  effect  from  cause  and  cause  from 
effect,  God  has  rendered  us  incapable  of  looking  at 
the  present  or  remembering  the  past,  without  at  the 
same  time,  or  as  a  necessary  consequence,  anticipating 
that  which  is  to  come,  and  to  a  great  extent  with  per- 
fect accuracy,  so  that  all  the  knowledge  of  the  future 
which  is  needed  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  human 
lift  is  amply  provided  and  infallibly  secured ;  while 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  this  crdinary  foresight,  he 


1  JOHN  3,  2.  149 

has  granted  to  some  gifted  minds  a  keener  vision  and 
a  more  enlarged  horizon,  so  that  objects,  which  to 
others  seem  to  lie  behind  the  veil  c/  providential  con- 
cealment, are  detected  and  revealed  by  the  far  reach- 
ing ken  of  their  sagacity. 

I^OT  is  this  all,  for  even  with  respect  to  things 
which  neither  ordinary  reasoning  from  analogy,  nor 
extraordinary  powers  of  forecast  can  avail  to  bring 
within  the  reach  of  human  prescience,  God  has  him- 
self been  pleased  to  make  them  known  by  special 
revelation.  Experience  and  reason  are  enough  to 
teach  us  that  all  men  must  die.  Professional  or  per- 
sonal sagacity  may  see  the  signs  of  speedy  death  in 
one,  whom  others  look  upon  as  firm  in  health,  and 
sure,  to  all  appearance,  of  long  life.  But  neither  rea- 
son, nor  experience,  nor  sagacity,  could  ever  teach  us 
that  the  body  now  dead  shall  again  live ;  that  the  soul 
now  living  shall  yet  die,  the  death,  not  of  annihilation, 
but,  of  perdition  ;  that  this  second  death  is,  by  nature, 
the  inevitable  doom  of  all  mankind,  and  yet  that  it 
may  be  escaped,  but  only  in  one  way.  Much  less  can 
that  one  way  be  distinguished  or  revealed  by  the  ex- 
ercise of  any  unassisted  human  power.  Tliese  are 
things  which  neither  eye  can  see,  nor  ear  hear,  nor 
heart  conceive,  until  the  Spirit  of  God  makes  them 
known.  The  light  which  shines  upon  the  ordinary 
duties  and  events  of  life,  is  that  which  glimmers 
through  the  curtain  of  futurity  ;  the  more  extraordi- 
nary sights  which  are  occasionally  seen  by  some  minds 
in  the  exercise  of  an  extraordinary  poAvcr,  are  the 
vague  and  dubious  shadows  which  appear  and  disap- 
pear upon  the  curtain  which  conceals  their  cause ; 


150  SERMONS. 

but  the  view  wliieli  man  obtains  cf  heaven  and  Lell, 
of  everlasting  life  and  of  the  second  death,  can  only 
be  obtained  through  some  opening  which  the  hand  of 
God  himself  has  made  in  that  mysterious  curtain,  or 
at  some  favoured  spot  where  he  has  gathered  up  its 
folds,  and  given  man  a  clear,  though  partial  glimpse 
beyond  it,  free  from  all  obstruction. 

Revelations  thus  imparted  do  not  change  or  mod- 
ify the  operation  of  that  great  law  of  concealment 
under  which  God's  dispensations  are  conducted.  He 
has  indeed  made  known  the  way  of  life,  the  necessity 
and  method  of  salvation,  but  the  personal  futurity  of 
every  man  is  still  hidden  from  the  view  both  of  him- 
self and  others.  And  even  with  respect  to  that  which 
is  revealed,  there  is  reserve  and  limitation,  so  that 
while  men  may  rejoice  in  those  discoveries  which 
through  divine  grace  now  belong  to  them  and  their 
children,  they  are  still  constrained  to  say  with  Moses 
of  old,  "  Secret  things  belong  unto  the  Lord  our  God." 

Through  one  such  opening  into  Futurity  as  I  have 
been  describing,  God  has  permanently  brought  within 
the  view  of  all,  who  have  his  Word  in  their  posses- 
sion, a  long  line  of  light,  reaching  like  Jacob's  ladder 
from  the  earth  to  heaven,  a  path  for  the  descent  of 
ministering  angels,  and  the  ascent  of  such  as  shall  be 
saved.  Tlie  points  where  it  begins  and  ends  are  clear- 
ly marked ;  and  all  along  its  intervening  course,  the 
line  of  its  direction  is  identified  by  landmarks,  by  the 
altar  erected  at  the  gate  of  Paradise,  the  ark  of  ISToah, 
and  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  the  tabernacle,  the  tem- 
ple, the  manger  at  Bethlehem,  the  garden  of  Geth- 
eemane,  the  cross  on  Calvary,  the  tomb  of  Joseph,  the 


fl 


1  JOHN  3,  2.  151 

ascent  from  Olivet,  the  throne  of  God,  and  the  seat 
at  his  right  hand.  Along  this  pathway,  from  the 
depths  of  sin  and  sorrow,  thousands  have  made  their 
way  through  fire  and  flood,  through  the  blood  of  mar- 
t}Tdom  and  that  of  atonement,  out  of  much  tribula- 
tion, and  with  fear  and  trembling,  to  that  world 
where  there  is  no  night,  neither  light  of  the  sun, 
where  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling  and  the  weary 
are  at  rest. 

That  there  is  such  a  way  and  such  an  end,  no  one 
can  doubt  who  will  use  the  light  which  God  has  given 
him.  Behold,  oh  soul,  behold  it  for  thyself.  With- 
draw thy  curious  gaze  from  vain  endeavours  to  dis- 
cover that  which  is  concealed,  or  from  the  useless 
sight  of  visionary  phantoms ;  let  the  veil  still  hide  the 
secret  things  of  God  until  his  hand  shall  rend  it; 
but  behold  that  luminous  and  dazzling  point,  that  ray 
of  light  illumining  futurity,  an  aperture  through 
which  you  may  behold  the  life  that  is  to  come.  See 
that  narrow  pathway  with  its  difficult  approach,  and 
straitened  entrance,  scaling  one  mountain — then  an- 
other and  another  and  another — till  it  seems  to  dis- 
appear among  the  clouds  ;  and  then  again  to  be  seen 
through  them,  indistinct,  but  still  unchanged  in  its 
direction — still  ascending,  still  surmounting  every  in- 
tervening object,  till  the  aching  sense  toils  after  it  in 
vain,  or  the  view  which  was  afforded  you  is  suddenly 
cut  off.  For  here  is  an  example  of  that  limitation  and 
reserve  which  I  have  mentioned  as  acompanying  even 
the  clearest  revelations  of  futurity.  If  any  thing  is 
certain  it  is  this,  that  they  who  do  escape  perdition, 
and  by  faith   in   the  omnipotence  of  grace,  pursue 


152  SERMONS. 

this  upward  course,  shall  still  continue  to  ascend 
without  cessation,  rising  higher,  growing  better,  and 
becoming  more  and  more  like  God  throughout  eter- 
nity. I  say  that  this  is  sure — sure  as  the  oath  and 
promise  of  a  God  who  cannot  lie  can  make  it ;  and  it 
is  a  glorious  certainty  indeed  ;  but  when  we  task  our 
powers  to  distinguish  the  successive  steps  of  this  tran- 
scendent change,  to  compute  specifically  the  eftects 
which  certain  causes  will  produce,  and  to  anticipate 
the  actual  results  of  the  whole  process,  we  are  lost,  we 
are  bewildered ;  this  is  not  yet  revealed  to  us ;  it 
could  not  be  without  confounding  all  distinctions,  and 
making  the  present  and  the  future  one.  Hence  the 
Apostle,  who  is  speaking  in  the  text,  although  inspired 
to  reveal  the  general  fact  that  true  believers  are  the 
sons  of  God,  and  joint-heirs  with  the  Saviour  of  a 
glorious  inheritance,  even  he  stops  short  before  at- 
tempting to  describe  in  its  details  what  glorified  be- 
lievers are  to  be  hereafter,  even  his  tongue  falters, 
even  his  eye  quails,  he  turns  away  dazzled  from  the 
light  which  no  man  can  approach  unto,  and  which 
even  inspiration  did  not  enable  him  to  penetrate,  say- 
ing, "it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be," — we 
shall  be  something,  something  great  and  glorious, 
something  which  we  are  not,  and  never  have  been, 
something  of  which  we  cannot  form  an  adequate  con- 
ception ;  this  we  shall  be,  tliis  we  must  be ;  but  be- 
yond this,  as  to  the  mode  of  our  existence,  or  the  cir- 
cumstances of  our  new  condition,  "  it  doth  not  yet 
appear^ what  we  shall  be."  So  that  with  respect  to 
that  which  is  most  certain  as  a  general  truth,  many  at 


II 


1  JOHN  3,  2.  153 

least  of  the  particulars  included  in  it,  may  be  still  be- 
neath the  veil  of  providential  concealment. 

This  vagueness  and  uncertainty,  although  at  first 
sight  it  may  seem  to  be  a  serious  disadvantage,  is  nev- 
ertheless not  without  important  and  beneficent  efiects 
upon  the  subjects  of  salvation.  It  may  seem,  indeed, 
that  as  a  means  of  arousing  and  arresting  the  atten- 
tion, an  indefinite  assurance  of  transcendent  blessed- 
ness hereafter  is  less  likely  to  be  efiicacious  than  a 
distinct  and  vivid  exhibition  of  the  elements  which 
are  to  constitute  that  blessedness ;  but  let  it  be  re- 
membered that  no  possible  amount,  and  no  conceiva- 
ble array  of  such  particulars,  would  have  the  least 
effect  in  originating  serious  reflection  or  desire  in  the 
unconverted  heart.  Tliis  can  be  wrought  by  nothing 
short  of  a  divine  power,  and  when  it  is  thus  wrought, 
when  the  thoughts  and  the  affections  are  once  turned 
in  the  right  direction,  the  less  detailed  and  more  in- 
definite description  of  the  glory  which  is  yet  to  be  ex- 
perienced, seems  often  best  adapted  to  excite  and 
stimulate  the  soul  and  lead  it  onwards,  by  still  pre- 
senting something  that  is  yet  to  be  discovered  or 
attained,  and  thus  experimentally  accustoming  the 
soul  to  act  upon  the  vital  principle  of  its  new-born 
nature,  forgetting  that  which  is  behind,  and  reaching 
forth  to  that  which  is  before. 

Tlie  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  indefinite  man 
ner  in  which  the  doom  of  the  impenitent  and  unbe-- 
lieving  is  set  forth  in  Scripture.  The  general  truth 
that  they  shall  perish,  that  their  ruin  shall  be  total, 
final,  and  irrevocable,  and  that  their  condition  shall  be 
growing  worse  and  worse  and  worse  forever ;  this  is 

VOL.  I. — 7* 


154  SERMONS. 

taught  too  clearly  to  be  rendered  dubious  by  any 
natural  or  rational  interpretation  of  the  Word  of  G  bd. 
And  in  the  truth  thus  clearly  taught  there  is  a  fathom- 
less depth  of  solemn  and  terrific  import,  rendered 
more  impressive  by  the  vagueness  and  reserve  of  the 
description,  when  the  mind  has  once  been  awakened 
to  the  serious  contemplation  of  futurity ;  but  until 
this  is  the  case,  the  general  threatenings  of  perdition 
fall  without  eifect  upon  the  heavy  ear  and  the  obdu- 
rate conscience.  No  attempt,  however,  has  been 
made  in  Scripture  to  increase  their  efficacy  by  an  ac- 
cumulation of  appalling  circumstances.  There  are 
fearful  glimpses  of  the  world  of  woe,  but  they  are 
merely  glimj)ses,  abundantly  sufficient  to  assure  us 
that  there  is  a  future  state  of  punishment,  but  not  to 
feed  or  stimulate  a  morbid  curiosity.  In  this,  as  in 
the  corresponding  case  before  described,  if  the  mind 
is  awakened,  such  details  are  needless,  and  if  not 
awakened,  they  are  unavailing.  Tell  a  poor  man  that 
he  has  suddenly  been  made  rich  by  the  bequest  of 
some  unknown  kinsman  or  a  stranger,  and  so  long  as 
he  regards  it  as  a  jest  or  an  imposition,  you  gain 
nothing  by  the  fullest  and  most  accurate  detail  of  the 
possessions  which  have  thus  devolved  upon  him ;  nay, 
the  very  minuteness  of  your  description  seems  to  con- 
firm him  in  his  incredulity.  But  let  him  by  some 
other  means  be  thoroughly  persuaded  of  the  fact  that 
he  has  undergone  this  change  of  fortune,  and  he  lis- 
tens even  to  the  most  indefinite  and  vague  assurance 
with  avidity,  and  now,  instead  of  slighting  the  par- 
ticulars of  which  before  he  took  no  notice,  he  is  eager 
to  obtain  them,  and  pursues  his  importunate  inquiries 


I 


1  JOHN  3,  2.  155 

until  one  fact  after  another  has  been  fully  ascertained. 
So  too  in  the  case  of  warnings  against  some  impend- 
ing danger.  Tell  a  solitary  traveller,  that  in  the 
forest  which  is  just  before  him  there  are  wild  beasts, 
robbers,  pitfalls,  precipices,  labyrinths,  or  any  other 
perils,  and  if  he  believes  you  not,  it  is  in  vain  that 
you  exaggerate  the  evil,  or  depict  it  in  the  most  im- 
pressive and  alarming  colours.  Every  stroke  that  you 
add  to  your  description  seems  to  make  it  less  effective 
than  the  indefinite  assurance  which  preceded  it.  But 
if  a  sudden  panic  should  take  hold  of  him,  or,  instead 
of  being  fearless  and  self-confident,  he  be  naturally 
timid  and  accustomed  to  shun  danger,  even  the  first 
vague  intimation  of  that  danger  is  sufficient  to  unman 
him,  and  he  either  turns  around,  without  waiting  for 
a  more  detailed  description  of  the  case,  or  else  he 
hears  it  with  the  eagerness  of  unaffected  terror. 

These  familiar  illustrations  may  sufiice  to  show 
that  in  the  wise  reserve  with  which  the  Scriptures 
speak  of  the  details  of  future  blessedness  and  misery, 
there  is  no  sacrifice  of  any  salutary  influence  upon 
the  minds  of  men ;  and  that  it  does  not  in  the  least 
impair  the  majesty,  benevolence,  and  justice  of  God's 
dealings  with  the  souls  of  men — that  while  the  cer- 
tainty, eternity,  and  endless  progression,  both  of  future 
blessedness  and  future  miserj^,  are  clearly  set  forth  in 
the  word  of  God,  the  minute  particulars  of  neither 
state  and  neither  process  are  detailed,  nor  any  at- 
tempt made  to  describe  things  indescribable ;  but 
both  are  left  to  be  made  known  by  a  glorious  or  terri- 
ble experience,  with  the  solemn  premonition,  clothed 
in  various  forms,  that  in  reference,  as  well  to  our  de- 


J56  SERMONS. 

struction  if  we  perish,  or  to  onr  blessedness  if  saved, 
"  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be." 

In  thtis  extending  what  the  text  says  of  God'e 
adopted  children,  to  the  misery  of  those  whom  he 
shall  finally  cast  off,  I  have  merely  held  np  to  your 
view  the  same  great  truth  in  two  of  its  important  as- 
pects. It  is  the  same  pillar  that  is  light  to  Israel  and 
dark  to  the  Egyptians.  It  was  not,  howerer,  my  de- 
sign to  dwell  upon  the  mere  doctrinal  proposition, 
though  unquestionably  true  and  inconceivably  impor- 
tant, that  neither  reason  nor  experience  nor  imagina- 
tion can,  in  this  life,  furnish  us  with  any  adequate 
conception  either  of  the  joys  of  heaven  or  the  pains  of 
hell ;  nor  can  I  be  satisfied  with  simply  pointing  to 
the  one  and  to  the  other,  and  in  reference  to  both,  as- 
suring those  who  now  hear  me,  in  the  accents  of  encour- 
agement and  warning,  that  "  it  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  we  shall  be."  I  desire  rather  to  bring  this  inter- 
esting fact  of  the  text  to  bear  with  all  its  rightful  power 
on  the  character,  interests,  and  duties  of  my  hearers. 
To  effect  this  purpose,  I  have  no  need  to  resort  to  any 
forced  accommodation  or  arbitrary  application  of 
the  text,  which  I  have  chosen  with  direct  view  to  the 
use  which  I  now  propose  to  make  of  it.  All  that  is 
necessary  for  my  present  purpose,  imder  God's  bless- 
ing, is  to  lead  your  minds  a  little  further  in  the  same 
direction  which  we  have  been  hitherto  pursuing,  and 
if  possible,  to  show  you  the  effect  which  the  doctrine 
of  the  text,  if  rightly  "understood  and  heaitily  em 
braced,  must  have  upon  our  views  of  human  life,  and 
more  particularly  of  its  earlier  periods. 

If,  my  hearer,  it  be  true,  as  I  believe,  and  you  be 


1  JOHN  3,  2.  15Y 

lieve,  and  as  God's  word  assures  us,  that  in  reference 
even  to  the  case  of  those  who  shall  assuredly  be  saved 
or  as  assuredly  be  lost,  "  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what 
they  shall  be ; "  if  it  be  true  that  even  those  who  are 
already  saved,  not  merely  in  God's  purpose,  but  in 
fact,  beyond  the  reach  of  all  disturbing  and  retarding 
causes,  even  they  who  are  rejoicing  at  this  moment  in 
God's  presence  as  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  per- 
fect, if  even  they  are  unable  to  enclose  in  their  con- 
ceptions that  illimitable  ocean  into  which  they  have- 
been  plunged  but  for  a  moment ;  if  it  be  true  that  even 
those  who  are  disembodied  spirits  and  are  now  drink- 
ing of  the  cup  of  divine  wrath,  can,  in  the  anguish 
of  their  torment,  frame  no  definite  idea  of  the  volume 
and  duration  of  that  stream  of  fire  which  forever  and 
forever  fills  their  cup  to  overflowing ;  if  both  these 
souls,  however  difi"erent  their  actual  condition  and 
their  prospects  for  eternity,  are  forced  alike  to  cry  out 
in  a  triumphant  burst  of  grateful  joy  and  a  convulsion 
of  blaspheming  horror,  "  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what 
we  shall  be ! "  Oh,  with  what  multiplied  intensity 
of  emphasis  may  those  whose  future  state  is  still  un- 
settled, who  are  still  upon  the  isthmus  between  hell 
and  heaven,  wavering,  vacillating,  hanging  in  terrible 
suspense  between  the  two,  unable  or  unwilling  to  de- 
cide their  fate,  and  waiting,  it  would  almost  seem, 
until  some  heaving  of  the  ocean  of  eternity  should 
sweep  them  from  the  earth  they  know  not,  think  not, 
care  not  whither,  Oh  !  with  what  emphasis  might 
such  exclaim,  as  they  hang  over  the  dizzy  verge  of 
two  unchanging,  everlasting  states,  "  it  doth  not  yet 
appear  what  we  shall  be." 


158  SERMONS. 

But  is  it,  can  it  be,  a  fact,  that  rational,  spiritual 
beings,  godlike  in  tlieir  origin,  and  made  for  immor- 
tality, with  faculties  susceptible  of  endless  elevation 
and  enlargement  and  activity,  can  hesitate  to  choose 
life  rather  than  death,  and  good  in  preference  to  evil  ? 
Yes,  it  may  be  so  ;  it  is  so  ;  such  neutrality  is  possi- 
ble, so  far  as  a  decisive  formal  action  of  the  will  goes. 
The  performance  of  that  last  act  may  be  long  defer- 
red, and  in  deferring  it,  the  dying  soul  may  cherish 
the  belief  that  all  is  still  at  its  disposal,  and  that  by 
one  indejsendent  act  of  will,  the  whole  work  of  salva- 
tion or  perdition  is  to  be  begun  and  finished.  Oh, 
W'hat  a  delusion !  \vhen  the  cup,  by  long-continued 
droppings,  has  been  filled  up  to  the  brim,  to  imagine 
that  the  last  and  almost  imperceptible  infusion  which 
produces  its  final  overflow  is  all  that  it  contains  ;  or, 
that  the  withholding  of  that  one  drop,  leaves  it  empty 
and  removes  all  danger  of  its  ever  overflowing.  How 
preposterous  a  hope !  and  yet  in  no  respect  less  ra- 
tional than  his,  who  lets  his  life  not  only  run  to  waste, 
but  run  to  ruin,  in  the  expectation  that  by  some  one 
energetic  act  at  last,  the  countless  acts  which  have 
preceded  it,  shall  all  be  cancelled  and  their  effect 
neutralized.  It  is  the  crying  sin  and  the  stupendous 
folly  of  our  race,  that  while  they  own  their  need  of 
expiation,  and  repentance,  and  conversion,  and  ac- 
knowledge, yea,  insist  upon  God's  sovereign  right  to 
give  them  or  withhold  them,  they  not  only  make  no 
efforts  to  obtain  them  at  his  hands,  but,  as  it  were, 
take  pains  to  make  the  work  which  they  acknowledge 
to  be  necessary,  harder,  and  the  grace  which  they 
prefer  to  wait  for,  more  and  more  hopeless.     Does 


I 


1  JOHN  3,  2.  159 

the  man  who  looks  to  God  for  the  productions  of  that 
which  he  has  buried  in  the  earth,  demonstrate  his  de- 
pendence by  introducing  tares  among  his  wheat,  by 
laboriously  cultivating  noxious  weeds,  or  by  violently 
tearing  from  the  earth  the  very  seed  on  which  he  is 
depending  for  a  harvest  ?  Does  the  man  who  looks 
to  God  for  the  recovery  of  health,  presume  on  that 
ground  to  drink  poison,  to  court  exposure,  and  to 
plunge  into  the  most  insane  and  ruinous  excesses? 
Does  the  mariner  who  looks  to  God  for  a  successful 
issue  to  his  voyage,  throw  his  cargo  and  provisions 
overboard,  dismantle  his  own  vessel,  pierce  its  bot- 
tom, or  deliberately  drive  it  upon  fatal  rocks  ?  Is 
such  madness  possible  ?  or,  if  it  were,  would  it  be  in 
the  least  extenuated  by  the  calm  profession  of  a  pur- 
pose to  do  otherwise  and  better,  at  some  future  time, 
when  all  the  evil  may  have  been  accomplished,  and 
amendment  irretrievably  too  late  ? 

Of  all  reliances,  the  w^eakest  and  the  worst  is  a 
reliance  on  the  permanence  of  present  motives,  which 
now  have  no  effect,  and  may  one  day  gatlier  over- 
whelming strength,  and  those  which  now  seem  all- 
sufficient,  and  may  be  powerless.  Because  you  now 
wish  to  repent,  and  to  believe,  and  to  be  saved  here- 
after, you  imagine  yourselves  safe  in  your  impenitence, 
and  unbelief  and  condemnation.  "Why,  the  very  dispo- 
sition wdiich  is  now  made  the  pretext  for  procrastina- 
tion, may  forsake  you.  The  respect  you  now  feel  for 
the  truth,  for  God's  law,  for  the  gospel,  may  be 
changed  into  a  cold  indifference,  contemptuous  incre- 
dulity, or  malignant  hatred.  The  faint  gleams  cf  con 
viction  which  occasionally  light  up  the  habitual  dark 


160  SERMONS. 

ness  of  the  mind,  may  be  extinguished.  The  compunc- 
tious visitings  which  now  preserve  your  conscience 
from  unbroken  stupor,  may  become  less  frequent, 
till  they  cease  forever,  or  give  place  to  the  agonizing 
throbs  of  an  incurable  remorse.  In  short,  the  very 
feelings  and  intentions  upon  which  you  vainly  build 
your  hopes  of  future  reformation,  may  themselves  be 
as  evanescent  as  the  outward  circumstances  which 
produce  them  ;  and  when  these  have  passed  away, 
the  others  may  soon  follow ;  so  that,  even  though  your 
judgment  may  be  now  correct,  your  feelings  tender, 
and  your  plans  of  future  action  all  that  could  be 
wished,  "  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  you  shall  be." 

How  often,  oh,  how  often,  has  some  real  or  imagi- 
nary sorrow  touched  the  secret  springs  of  your  affec- 
tion with  a  sympathy  so  exquisite  that  change  ap- 
peared impossible,  and  you  imagined,  aye,  perhaps, 
declared,  that  you  would  never  smile  again!  Has 
that  pledge  been  redeemed  ?  In  other  cases,  how 
your  heart  has  swelled  with  gratitude  for  some  de- 
liverance or  surprising  mercy,  which  you  fondly 
dreamed  could  never  be  forgotten  ?  Were  you  right 
in  so  believing  ?  Oh,  my  hearers,  where  are  the  de- 
lights of  infancy,  the  sports  of  childhood,  and  the 
hopes  of  youth,  the  joys  and  sorrows  which  absorbed 
your  thoughts  and  governed  your  affections  but  a  few 
years  back  ?  Are  they  not  all  gone  ?  Have  not  their 
very  objects  and  occasions  in  many  cases  been  for- 
gotten ?  And  has  not  this  process  been  repeated  more 
than  once,  it  may  be  often,  till  you  find  it  hard  to 
look  back  a  few  years  or  even  months,  without  a 
passing  doubt  of  your  identity,  so  changed  are  your 


1  JOHN  3,  2.  161 

opinions,  inclinations,  habits,  purposes  and  hopes? 
Eecall  that  wish,  and  then  consider  whether  its  ful- 
filment now  would  make  you  happy  as  it  promised 
to  do  then ;  nay,  does  it  even  seem  desirable,  or  wor- 
thy of  an  effort  to  secure  it  ?  No,  the  appetite  has 
sickened  and  so  died.  The  object  is  the  same,  but 
you  are  not ;  your  mind,  your  heart,  your  will,  are 
changed  ;  and  do  you,  can  you,  dare  you  think,  that 
you  are  now  unchangeable,  or  capable  of  changing 
for  the  better  only,  so  that  what  you  now  approve, 
and  wish,  and  purpose,  will  still  continue  to  be  thus 
approved,  desired,  and  purposed,  and  at  last  per- 
formed. Alas,  my  hearer,  if,  when  you  look  at  what 
you  are,  you  can  scarcely  recognize  what  you  have 
been,  surely  "it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  you  shall 

be." 

To  some  of  you  the  period  of  childhood  is  so  re- 
cent that  memory  has  not  yet  wholly  lost  its  old  im- 
pressions. You  can  easily  remember  objects  upon 
which  you  then  looked  witli  a  solemn  awe,  perhaps 
with  terror.  Do  they  still  command  your  reverence  ? 
There  were  others  upon  which  you  looked  with  infan- 
tile contempt,  as  far  less  interesting  than  your  child- 
ish sports  ;  and  yet  these  objects  have  been  rising  and 
expanding  in  the  view  with  every  moment  of  your 
life  and  every  handsbreadth  of  your  stature.  And 
now,  I  ask  you,  what  is  the  change  owing  to?  to  lapse 
of  time  ?  to  change  of  circumstances  ?  to  the  growth  of 
all  your  faculties  ?  And  are  you  not  soon  to  be  still 
older  than  you  are  ?  Must  not  your  circumstances 
undergo  still  further  change  ?  Can  you  imagine  that 
the  development  and  cultivation  of  your  powers  are 


IQ2  SERMONS. 

already  finished?  Is  it  not  then  possible,  at  least, 
that  your  future  views  and  feelings  may  as  widely 
differ  from  your  present  views  and  feelings,  as  the 
present  from  the  past.  And  is  it  rational  or  right  to 
seal  up  your  own  destiny  and  character  ? 

Turn  not  away,  then,  from  the  gracious  invitations 
of  the  gospel,  merely  because  you  do  not  now  feel  the 
need  of  its  protection,  consolations,  and  rewards.  Life 
is  not  only  short  but  full. of  change.  If  you  could  now 
look  back  and  see  some  golden  opportunity  of  wealth 
and  greatness  lost  forever,  through  a  freak  of  childish 
levity,  you  would  scarcely  be  consoled  by  the  reflec- 
tion that  you  thereby  gained  another  hour  of  amuse- 
ment. But,  oh,  how  inadequate  is  this  to  give  the 
least  idea  of  your  feelings  in  that  awful  hour,  when 
you  shall  see  eternal  life  forever  lost  for  the  mere 
playthings  of  this  passing  scene.  Try  then  to  antedate 
experience,  to  anticipate  as  possible,  feelings  the  most 
remote  from  those  which  you  are  now  indulging. 
For  example,  when  I  speak  of  consolation,  there  are 
some  perhaps  among  you  who  could  smile  at  the  idea 
as  entirely  foreign  from  your  present  feelings.  And 
when  you  look  before  you  and  imagine  scenes  of  sor- 
row, they  are  mere  fantastic  images,  on  which  your 
stronger  feelings  rest  but  for  a  moment.  This  may 
not  be  the  case  with  all.  Tliere  may  be  some  here 
whose  experience  has  made  them  prematurely  old. 
There  may  be  hearts  among  you  whose  deep  foun- 
tains have  been  broken  up  and  taught  to  gush  already. 
Such  need  no  admonition  upon  this  point.  The  heart 
knoweth  its  own  bitterness,  and  the  stranger  inter- 
meddle th  not  with  its  joys.     But  you  who  are  with- 


1  JOHN  8,  2.  163 

ont  experience  of  real  and  deep-seated  scrrow,  look 
afar  off  at  that  strange  phantasmagoria  of  darkened 
chambers,  desolated  houses,  beds  of  pain,  dying 
struggles,  funeral  rites,  and  broken  hearts — and 
amidst  all  these  behold  that  human  form,  and  tell  me 
whether  you  can  realize  yourself  Now,  as  to  out- 
ward things,  you  may  be  far  beyond  the  reach  of  such 
considerations  as  a  motive  to  repentance,  but  you 
know  not  what  an  hour  may  bring  forth.  Whatever 
you  are  now,  "  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  you  shall 
be." 

But  your  danger  lies  not  merely  in  disregarding 
motives  which  you  are  to  feel  hereafter,  but  in  blind- 
ly trusting  to  the  performance  of  those  which  you  ac- 
knowledge now.  I  might  go  farther  and  excite  your 
incredulity  and  eVen  your  contempt,  by  holding  up, 
as  possible,  a  total  change  not  only  in  your  feelings 
and  your  principles,  but  even  in  your  outward  lives, 
a  change  which  you  would  look  upon  as  utterly  im- 
possible, a  change  no  less  humbling  to  your  pride 
than  blasting  to  your  hopes.  I  might  startle  you  by 
holding  up  a  mirror  which,  instead  of  giving  back 
the  smiling  aspect  that  you  now  wear,  the  counte- 
nance of  health  and  buoyant  spirits,  should  confront 
you  with  a  ghastly  likeness  of  jour  present  self,  un- 
der the  strange  and  hideous  disguise  of  an  exhausted 
gamester,  a  decaying  libertine,  a  bloated  drunkard,  a 
detected  cheat,  a  conscience-stricken  murderer.  I  might 
present  you  to  yourself,  surrounded  by  the  wreck  of 
fortune,  family  and  character,  seated  amidst  the  ashes 
of  deserted  hearths  and  their  extinguished  fires,  gaz- 
ing unmoved  upon  peaceful   homes  made  desolate 


1Q^  SERMONS. 

and  foud  hearts  broken — the  wreck,  the  refuse,  the 
unquiet  ghost  of  all  that  you  are  now.  I  might  pre- 
sent all  this,  but  you  would  shrink  with  indignation 
from  the  foul  aspersion.  You  may  be  unfortunate, 
you  may  be  changed,  but  this,  but  this  you  can  never 
be,  never !  My  heart's  desire  and  prayer  to  God  is 
that  you  never  may  ;  but  what  is  your  security?  The 
mere  intentions  which  you  cherish  now,  to  be  ful- 
filled hereafter  ?  Ah,  my  hearer,  go  to  yonder  silent 
dwelling-place  of  crime,  and  learn  how  many  good 
intentions  have  been  cherished  in  those  now  degraded 
and  perhaps  now  despairing  bosoms.  Go  to  some  one 
haunt  of  vice,  and  trace  the  miserable  victims  who  as- 
semble there,  back  through  their  melancholy  pro- 
gress to  the  time  when  their  intentions  were  as  good 
as  yours,  their  external  circumstances  no  less  prom- 
ising. Go  to  the  gibbet,  to  the  yard-arm,  to  the  hor- 
rid scene  of  horrid  vengeance  wreaked  by  man  upon 
himself,  and  learn  that  even  there  the  deadly  fruit 
has  often  sprung  up  into  a  rank  vegetation,  from  the 
seed  of  good  but  ineffectual  intentions. 

It  is  high  time  for  our  youth  to  be  aware  that 
they  who  die  upon  scaffolds,  and  pine  away  in  prisons, 
are  not  seldom  such  as  once  scornfully  smiled  at  the 
suggestion  of  tlieir  ever  being  worse  than  they  were 
then ;  and  as  they  looked  upon  the  kind  friends  and  the 
multiplied  advantages  by  which  they  were  surround- 
ed, and  then  in  upon  the  purposes  of  future  good  they 
were  intending,  would  have  blushed  at  their  own 
cowardice  or  self  distrust  if  they  could  have  been 
brought  to  say,  "  It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we 
shall  be." 


1  JOHN  3,  2.  165 

When  I  recall  to  mind  tlie  countenances,  persons, 
manners,  talents,  attainments,  hopes,  and  purposes  of 
some  whom  I  knew  in  early  life,  and  then  consider 
what  they  now  are,  my  heart  sickens  at  the  sight  of 
early  promise,  not  because  it  is  not  infinitely  lovely, 
but  because  the  possibility  of  fatal  change  looms  with 
a  ghastly  speculation  through  the  eyes  of  these  en- 
couraging appearances,  as  evil  spirits  may  have  glared 
upon  spectators  from  the  bodies  of  the  men  whom 
they  possessed  of  old. 

From  such  anticipations,  rendered  more  distress- 
ing by  the  growing  frequency  of  such  deterioration 
and  of  awful  crime,  the  heart  is  forced  to  turn  away 
in  search  of  something  to  reanimate  its  hopes,  and 
this  is  only  to  be  found  in  the  immovable  belief  that 
God's  grace  is  omnipotent,  and  Christ's  blood  efiica- 
cious.  To  this  the  true  philanthropist  must  cling,  not 
only  as  the  ground  of  his  own  hope,  but  as  the  only 
som*ce  of  safety  to  the  young  around  him  ;  and  when 
they  earnestly  inquire,  as  they  sometimes  do,  how 
these  fearful  perils  are  to  be  avoided,  instead  of  mock- 
ing them  with  prudential  maxims  of  mere  worldly 
policy  or  selfish  cunning,  let  us  lead  them  at  once  to 
the  only  secure  refuge,  to  the  only  Saviour,  to  the  cross 
and  to  the  throne  of  Jesus  Christ.  Turn  ye  to  the 
strongholds,  ye  prisoners  of  hope  !  Press  into  yonder 
gateway  !  Cleave  to  those  massive  pillars  !  Bind 
yourselves  with  cords  to  the  horns  of  yonder  altar ! 
And  at  every  fresh  heave  of  the  ocean  and  the  earth, 
take  the  faster  hold  of  Christ's  cross  and  throne,  and 
you  are  safe.  Whatever  trials  may  await  you  here,  a 
glorious  compensation  is  reserved  for  you  hereafter  ; 


Igg  SERMONS. 

final  and  eternal  deliverance  "  from  the  bondage  of 
corruption  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of 
God."  "  Behold  what  manner  of  love  the  Father 
hath  bestowed  upon  us,  that  we  should  be  called  the 
sons  of  God  !  " 

But  strange  as  the  exaltation  is,  it  is  a  real  one. 
"  Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not 
yet  appear  what  we  shall  be  ;  but  we  know  that  when 
he  shall  appear  we  shall  be  like  him,  for  we  shall  see 
him  as  he  is  !  "  Oh  blessed  sight !  Oh  glorious  as- 
similation !  "We  shall  not  only  see  him  as  he  is,  but 
shall  be  like  him  !  Let  this  bright  anticipation  stim- 
ulate and  cheer  us  !  Let  Christ  be  in  us  the  hope 
of  glory  !  But  let  every  one  that  hath  this  hope  in 
him,  purify  himself  even  as  He  is  pure ! 


I 


IX. 

Luke  11,  26. — The  last  state  of  that  man  is  worse  than  the  first. 

Some  of  the  most  remarkable  inventions  and  dis- 
coveries, by  which  tlie  present  age  has  been  distin- 
guished, are  of  such  a  nature  as  to  realize  ideas  which 
were  once  regarded  as  peculiarly  visionary  and  ab- 
surd. The  steam-engine,  the  daguerreotype,  and  the 
electric  telegraph,  are  all  of  this  description.  To  our 
fathers,  these  results  would  not  only  have  appeared  im- 
probable or  impossible,  but  as  belonging  to  that  class 
of  impossibilities  which  most  resemble  mere  imagina- 
tive fictions.  That  man  should  be  conveyed  upon  his 
journey  by  the  vapour  of  boiling  water ;  that  the  sun 
should  be  constrained  to  do  the  painter's  work ;  and 
that  words  should  be  communicated  instantaneously  to 
any  distance  by  a  wire  ;  are  facts  which,  if  predicted 
a  few  centuries  ago,  would  not  merely  have  been  dis- 
believed as  philosophically  false,  but  laughed  at  as 
fabulous  inventions,  or  the  dreams  of  a  disordered 
fancy.  And  yet  these  realized  impossibilities  are 
now  so  familiar  to  our  every-day  experience,  that  we 
scarcely  think  it  necessary  to  distinguish  between 
them  and  the  most  ordinary  processes  of  nature  and 


1QQ  SERMONS. 

of  art,  to  which  the  world  has  been  accustomed  for  a 
course  of  ages.  The  power  of  steam,  however  highly 
valued,  is  now  seldom  thought  of  as  more  wonderful 
than  that  of  water,  wind,  or  animal  strength.  The 
instantaneous  operation  of  the  light  in  delineating 
forms,  seems  scarcely  more  surprising  than  the  tedious 
process  of  the  chisel ;  and  an  instantaneous  message 
from  the  ends  of  the  earth  may  one  day  seem  as  nat- 
ural and  common-place  an  incident  as  oral  communi- 
cation with  our  nearest  neighbours. 

The  use  which  I  would  make  of  this  extraordinary 
change  from  a  contemptuous  incredulity  to  a  faith  so 
unhesitating  as  even  to  exclude  surprise,  is  to  illus- 
trate the  position  that  a  corresponding  revolution  may 
perhaps  take  place  in  morals  and  religion ;  that  the 
time  may  be  at  hand  when  some  of  those  religious 
doctrines,  which  are  now  rejected  by  the  mass  of  men, 
not  merely  as  unscriptural  or  unphilosophical,  but  as 
fanciful  and  visionary,  shall  begin  to  take  their  place 
among  realities  too  certain  and  familiar  to  be  even 
wondered  at  as  something  strange.  K  such  a  revolu- 
tion of  opinion  and  of  feeling  should  indeed  take 
place,  there  is  no  subject  with  respect  to  which  we 
could  expect  its  effects  to  be  more  striking  than  the 
subject  of  evil  spirits  ;  their  existence  and  their  influ- 
ence on  human  conduct  and  condition.  The  predom- 
inant feeling  with  which  these  are  now  regarded,  even 
by  multitudes  who  hear  the  gospel,  and  profess  to  be 
believers  in  the  Bible,  is  a  feeling  of  tolerant  con- 
tempt or  compassionate  indulgence,  such  as  we  all 
entertain  with  respect  to  navigation  through  the  air, 
or  the  schemes  of  universal  language,  and  such  as  our 


LUKE  11, '26.  1(59 

fathers  entertained  witli  respect  to  those  familiar  facts 
of  our  experience  ah-eadj  mentioned.  If  to  this  sug- 
gestion of  a  like  change  in  men's  feelings  and  associa- 
tions with  respect  to  demoniacal  agency,  it  should  be 
objected  that  religious  truth  affords  no  room  for  new 
discovery,  being  already  fully  made  known  in  a  com- 
plete and  authoritative  revelation,  it  may  be  replied 
that  this  is  true  of  every  thing  essential  to  salvation 
or  even  to  the  full  development  of  Christian  charac- 
ter, but  not  of  all  things  partially  disclosed  in  Scrip- 
ture. As  the  intimations  which  we  find  there  of  the 
origin  and  structure  of  the  universe  do  not  preclude 
physical  investigation  and  discovery  as  useless,  or  for- 
bid them  as  unlawful,  because  there  are  only  inci- 
dental and  subordinate  subjects  of  Divine  revelation  ; 
so  the  knowledge,  or  at  least  the  faith,  of  men  as  to 
the  fearful  doctrine  of  a  devil  and  his  angels,  may, 
for  the  same  reason,  be  regarded  as  susceptible  of 
vast  increase.  At  all  events,  the  very  possibility  of 
such  a  change  should  lead  us  to  receive  with  any 
thing  but  levity  or  supercilious  indifference,  the  faint 
but  solemn  intimations  of  the  Bible  upon  this  myste- 
rious subject.  There  is  something  sublime  in  the  re- 
serve with  which  it  is  thus  treated.  The  views  pre- 
sented are  mere  glimpses  rendered  necessary  by  the 
context.  Sometimes  the  light  is  allowed  to  rest  longer 
on  the  object  than  at  other  times,  as  in  the  history  of 
Job's  temptations.  Even  there,  however,  the  unusual 
distinctness  of  the  view  afforded,  is  counterbalanced 
by  the  doubt  which  overhangs  the  question  whether 
the  statement  is  literal  or  figurative,  poetical,  or 
historical.     Between  the  two  testaments  there  is  a 

VOL.  I. — 8 


lYO  SERMONS. 

great  difference  of  clearness  and  minuteness  in  tLo 
statements  on  this  subject.  Even  in  those  of  the  Kow 
Testament,  however,  there  -S  still  the  same  appearance 
of  reserve,  the  same  entire  absence  of  a  disposition  to 
indulge  mere  curiosity,  by  limiting  the  statement  to 
such  facts  as  seem  required  for  some  specific  purpose. 
To  the  attentive  reader  there  will  everywhere  be 
visible  a  marked  peculiarity  of  tone  and  manner  in 
the  treatment  of  these  matters  which  is  well  adapted 
and  no  doubt  designed  to  keep  the  reader  in  perpet- 
ual recollection  of  the  awful  nature  of  the  things  re- 
ferred to,  and  of  the  fact  that  their  complete  develop- 
ment is  yet  to  come.  Some  have  inferred  from  this 
reserve,  that  expressions  so  obscure  could  not  have 
been  intended  to  convey  important  matters  of  belief, 
and  that  they  ought  therefore  to  be  looked  upon  as 
strong  oriental  tropes  or  mere  poetical  embellishments. 
This  may  seem  plausible  enough  when  looked  at  in 
the  general ;  but  it  is  not  susceptible  of  a  continued 
and  consistent  application  in  detail.  The  further  we 
pursue  it,  the  more  clearly  shall  we  see  what  may  be 
mentioned  as  a  second  characteristic  of  the  teachings 
of  the  Bible  on  the  subject. 

It  is  this,  that  while  the  revelation  is  reserved  and 
partial,  it  is  so  made  as  to  convey  an  irresistible  im- 
pression of  the  literal  reality  of  that  which  is  revealed. 
Whatever  different  conclusion  might  be  drawn  from 
the  language  or  the  spirit  of  particular  passages,  it 
is  impossible  to  view  them  all  in  a  connected  series 
without  a  strong  conviction  that  these  imperfect  and 
obscure  disclosures  of  an  unseen  world  of  evil  spirits 
*vere  intended   to  be  strictly  understood ;   that  the 


LUKE  11,  26.  171 

Bible  does  distinctly  teacli  the  agency  of  such  a  spirit 
in  the  great  original  apostacy  and  fall  of  oui*  first 
parents,  and  his  continued  influence  on  fallen  man,  an 
influence  which,  although  it  exists  at  all  times,  was 
permitted  while  our  Saviour  was  on  earth,  to  mani- 
fest itself  with  extraordinary  violence  and  clearness, 
in  the  form  of  demoniacal  possessions,  which  afiected 
both  the  minds  and  bodies  of  the  victims,  and  afibrded 
the  subjects  and  occasions  of  some  of  Christ's  most 
signal  miracles,  designed  not  merely  to  relieve  the 
sufferer,  nor  merely  to  display  his  superhuman  power, 
but  to  signalize  his  triumph,  as  the  seed  of  the  woman, 
over  the  adverse  party  represented  in  the  first  promise 
of  a  Saviour,  as  the  seed  of  the  serpent,  whose  last 
desperate  struggles,  not  for  existence  but  for  victory, 
were  witnessed  in  those  fearful  cases  of  disease  and 
madness  which  the  gospel  narrative  ascribes  expressly 
to  the  personal  agency  of  demons,  the  history  of  whose 
dispossession  and  expulsion  is  so  prominent  a  feat- 
ure in  the  life  of  Christ. 

There  are  here  two  errors  to  be  avoided,  that  of 
denying  the  reality  of  these  possessions,  and  that  of 
supposing  that  the  influence  of  evil  spirits  upon  men 
was  restricted  to  the  time  of  our  Lord's  personal 
presence  upon  earth.  It  existed  before.  It  continues 
still.  Its  nature  and  extent  are  undefinable  at  pres- 
ent and  by  us.  "We  only  know  that  it  is  not  a  co- 
ercive power,  destroying  personal  responsibility,  but 
a  moral  influence  extending  to  the  thoughts  and  dis- 
positions. The  true  view  of  the  matter  seems  to  be, 
that  from  the  time  of  Eve's  temptation  to  the  present 
hour  a  mysterious  connection  has  existed  between 


1Y2  SERMONS. 

fallen  man  and  fallen  angels,  the  latter  acting  as  tlie 
tempters  and  seducers  of  the  former,  the  influence  ex- 
erted being  mental  and  insensible,  or,  so  far  as  it  is 
corporeal,  inscrutable  by  us ;  but  that  at  the  time  of 
Christ's  appearance,  the  physical  effects  were  suffered 
to  display  themselves  in  an  extraordinary  manner,  for 
the  purpose  of  manifesting  his  superiority  to  the 
powers  of  darkness,  and  showing  forth  his  glory  as 
the  conqueror  of  the  conqueror  of  mankind.  If  he  were 
now  to  re-appear,  the  same  effect  might  be  again  pro- 
duced. The  latent  adversary  might  be  forced  to  show 
himself,  and  manifest  at  once  his  fear  and  hatred,  not 
only  by  the  paroxysms  of  his  victim,  by  his  unearthly 
shrieks,  and  spasms,  and  foaming  at  the  mouth,  but 
by  the  repetition  of  that  cry,  so  often  heard  of  old, 
"  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee,  thou  holy  one  of  God  ? 
art  thou  come  to  torment  me  before  the  time  ?  "  Or 
if  the  veil  which  hides  the  spiritual  world  could  now 
be  lifted  even  for  a  moment,  we  might  stand  aghast 
to  see  how  large  a  portion  of  the  moral  history  of  sin- 
ners is  determined  by  satanic  influence ;  not  such  as 
to  extenuate  the  sinner's  guilt,  but  rather  to  aggra- 
vate it  by  disclosing  that  his  sins  are  committed  in 
obedience  to  the  dictates  of  such  a  master,  and  in 
compliance  with  the  suggestions  of  such  a  counsellor. 
Tlie  drunkard  and  the  libertine,  and  every  other  class 
of  sinners,  might  be  then  seen  attended  by  their  evil 
genius,  smoothing  the  way  to  ruin  and  averting  every 
better  influence.  The  moral  changes  now  experienced, 
might  be  then  seen  to  have  more  than  an  ideal  con- 
nection with  the  presence  and  absence  of  these  hellish 
visitants.     The  apparent  reformation  of  the  sinner 


LUKE  11,  26.  3^  ^3 

might  then  be  found  to  coincide  with  their  departure, 
and  his  relaj)se  with  their  return.  Yes,  and  in  many- 
cases,  the  experience  of  such  might  be  found  to  cor- 
respond, not  merely  in  a  figure,  but  in  literal  truth, 
with  the  fearful  picture  set  before  us  in  the  text.  By 
means  of  a  vision  supernaturally  strengthened,  we 
might  actually  see  the  evil  spirit  going  out  of  this 
man  and  that  man,  now  regarded  as  mere  ordinary 
cases  of  reformation  or  conversion,  and  then  returnincr 
with  seven  others  worse  than  himself,  so  that  the  last 
state  of  that  man  is  worse  than  the  first. 

Tliere  is  something  fearful  in  the  thought  that  such 
a  process  may  be  literally  going  on  among  us  and 
around  us  ;  that  from  one  and  another  of  these  very 
hearts  the  evil  spirit  may  have  recently  departed,  and 
may  be  wandering  in  desert  places,  seeking  rest  and 
finding  none,  until,  despairing  of  another  habitation, 
he  shall  come  back  to  his  old  house  and  find  it  swept 
and  garnished,  rendered  more  desirable  by  partial 
and  temporary  reformation,  and  taking  with  him  seven 
others,  he  may  even  now  be  knocking  for  admis- 
sion, and  woe  to  him  who  opens,  for  the  last  state  of 
that  man  is  worse  than  the  first. 

But  even  granting  what  to  some  may  seem  too 
clear  to  be  denied,  that  there  is  no  such  process  liter- 
ally going  on,  and  that  our  Saviour's  words  contain 
a  mere  comparison  drawn  from  a  real  or  ideal  case  of 
demoniacal  possession,  and  intended  to  illustrate  a 
familiar  fact  in  morals,  that  relapses  into  sin  are  al- 
ways dangerous,  and  often  fatal ;  we  may  still  gather 
very  much  the  same  instruction  from  the  parable  as 
if  it  were  a  literal  description.    Whatever  horrors  the 


•y/j^  SERMONS. 

imagination  may  associate  with,  tlie  personal  invasion 
and  inhabitation  ,  )f  an  evil  spirit,  is  it  really  more  dread- 
ful, to  the  eye  of  reason  and  awakened  conscience, 
than  the  constant  presence  of  an  evil  principle,  not  as 
a  mere  visitant,  but  as  a  part  of  the  man  himself?  Is 
it  not  this,  after  all,  which  makes  the  other  seem  so 
terrible  ?  The  coming  and  going  of  good  angels  has 
no  such  effect  on  the  imagination  ;  nor  would  that  of 
neutral  spirits,  neither  good  nor  evil.  Apart  from 
their  moral  effects,  their  presence  or  absence  is  a 
matter  of  indifference.  And  if  the  effects  are 
wrought,  it  matters  little  whether  they  are  literally 
brought  about,  in  whole  or  in  part,  by  the  influence 
of  demons,  or  only  metaphorically  so  described.  It  mat- 
ters little  wliether  our  Saviour  meant  to  represent  the 
fluctuations  of  man's  spiritual  state  as  actually  caused 
by  the  departure  and  return  of  these  invisible  se- 
ducers, or  only  to  describe  their  fearful  import  and 
result  by  mysterious  figures  borrowed  from  the  world 
of  spirits. 

The  primary  application  of  the  words,  as  made  by 
Christ  himself,  was  to  his  own  contemporaries — the 
Jewish  nation — who  for  ages  had  been  separated  from 
the  Gentiles ;  and  from  whom  the  demon  of  idolatry 
had  been  cast  out  at  the  Babylonish  exile ;  but  who 
now,  in  their  malignant  persecution  and  rejection  of 
their  born  Messiah,  seemed  to  be  repossessed  by 
devils  far  more  numerous  and  spiteful  than  those  by 
which  they  had  been  actuated  in  the  worst  days  of 
their  earlier  history,  or  even  those  which  they  be- 
lieved themselves  to  be  the  gods  of  the  heathen.  Of 
Buch  a  people — 30  peculiarly  distinguished,  and  yet  so 


LUKE  11,  26.  1Y5 

unfaithful,  who  had  proved  untrue  to  a  vocation  so 
extraordinary  ;  and,  while  boasting  of  their  vast  supe- 
riority to  the  heathen,  had  outdone  the  heathen  them- 
selves in  crime,  and  were  yet  to  sink  as  far  below 
them  in  punishment — of  such  a  people  it  might  well 
be  said,  that  their  last  state  was  worse  than  their 
first. 

The  same  thing  is  no  less  true  of  other  communi- 
ties, distinguished  by  extraordinary  providential  fa- 
vours, and  by  flagrant  abuse  of  their  advantages.  If 
we  could  watch  the  tide  of  national  prosperity,  in  such 
a  case,  until  it  ebbed,  it  would  require  no  great 
stretch  of  imagination  to  perceive  the  evil  spirit,  who 
had  seemed  to  forsake  a  people  so  enlightened  and  so 
highly  favored,  coming  back  under  the  cloak  of  the 
returning  darkness,  from  his  wandering  in  the  desert, 
not  alone,  but  followed  by  a  shadowy  train,  overleap- 
ing the  defences  which  appeared  impregnable  to  hu- 
man foes,  or  mysteriously  gliding  through  the  very 
crevices  of  fast-barred  doors,  and  unexpectedly  appear- 
ing in  their  ancient  haunts,  which  all  the  intervening 
glory  and  prosperity  have  only  seemed  to  sweej)  and 
garnish  for  its  repossession  by  its  ancient  master  and 
his  new  confederates,  under  whose  united  usurpation 
and  oppression  the  last  state  of  that  race,  or  society, 
or  nation,  must  be  worse  tlian  the  first. 

But  it  is  not  merely  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  wliole 
communities  that  these  terrific  images  were  meant  to 
be  applied.  The  same  law  of  reaction  and  relapse 
controls  the  personal  experience  of  the  individual. 
This  is,  indeed,  its  most  instructive  and  affecting  ap- 
plication.    The  vicissitudes  of  nations,  or  of  other  ag- 


176  SERMONS. 

gregate  Dodies,  however  imposing  to  the  eye  cf  the 
spectator,  and  however  sweeping  in  their  ultimate  ef- 
fects, do  not,  and  cannot  so  excite  our  sympathies  as 
those  which  take  place  in  a  single  soul^  and  by  which 
the  experience  of  communities  and  nations,  after  all, 
must  be  determined.  It  is  not  as  the  invaders  of  a 
country  or  besiegers  of  a  city,  that  the  evil  spirit,  with 
his  sevenfold  reinforcement,  rises  up  before  the  mind's 
eye  in  terrific  grandeur.  It  is  when  we  see  him 
knocking  at  the  solitary  door  from  which  he  was  once 
-driven  in  disgrace  and  anguish.  The  scene,  though 
an  impressive  one,  is  easily  called  up.  A  lonely 
dwelling  on  the  margin  of  a  wilderness,  cheerfully 
lighted  as  tlie  night  approaches,  carefully  swept  and 
garnished,  and  apparently  the  home  of  plenty,  peace, 
and  comfort.  The  winds  that  sweep  across  the  desert 
pass  it  by  unheeded.  But,  as  the  darkness  thickens, 
something  more  than  wind  approaches  from  that  quar- 
ter. What  are  the  shadowy  forms  that  seem  to  come 
forth  from  the  dry  places  of  the  wilderness,  and 
stealthily  draw  near  the  dwelling  ?  One  of  the  num- 
ber guides  the  rest,  and  now  they  reach  the  threshold. 
Hark  !  he  knocks ;  but  only  to  assure  himself  that 
there  is  no  resistance.  Through  the  opened  door  we 
catch  a  glimpse  of  the  interior,  swept  and  garnished — 
swept  and  garnished;  but  for  whose  use? — its  right- 
ful owner?  Alas!  no;  for  he  is  absent ;  and  already 
has  that  happy  home  begun  to  ring  with  fiendish 
laughter,  and  to  glare  with  hellish  flames  ;  and,  if  the 
weal  or  woe  of  any  man  be  centred  in  it,  the  last  state 
of  that  man  is  worse  than  the  first. 

Do  you  look  upon  this  as  a  mere  fancy  scene  ? 


LUKE  11,  26.  17Y 

Alas  I  my  hearers,  just  sucli  fancy  scenes  arc  passing 
every  day  within  yon  or  around  you,  rendered  only 
more  terrific  by  the  absence  of  all  sensible  indica- 
tions, just  as  we  shrink  with  a  peculiar  dread  from 
unseen  dangers  if  considered  real,  and  are  less  affected 
by  the  destruction  that  wastes  at  noon-day,  than  by 
the  pestilence  that  walks  in  darkness.  Come  with 
me  and  let  me  show  you  one  or  two  examples  of  fa- 
miliar spiritual  changes  which,  if  not  the  work  of  evil 
spirits,  may  at  least  be  aptly  represented  by  the  im- 
ages presented  in  the  text  and  context.  To  the  eye 
of  memory  or  imagination,  there  rises  up  the  form  of 
one  who  was  the  slave  of  a  particular  iniquity,  whicli 
gave  complexion  to  his  character  and  life.  It  was, 
perhaps,  an  open  and  notorious  vice,  which  directly 
lowered  him  in  public  estimation.  Or,  it  may  have 
been  a  secret  and  insidious  habit,  long  successfully 
concealed  or  never  generally  known.  But  its  effects 
were  seen.  Even  those  who  were  stranofcrs  to  his 
habits  could  perceive  that  there  was  something  wrong, 
and  they  suspected  and  distrusted  him.  He  felt  it, 
and  in  desperation  waxed  worse  and  worse.  But,  in 
the  course  of  Providence,  a  change  takes  place.  "With- 
out any  real  change  of  principle  or  heart,  he  finds 
that  his  besetting  sin  is  ruining  his  health,  his  repu- 
tation, or  his  fortune.  Strong  as  the  power  of  temp- 
tation, appetite,  and  habit  is,  some  form  of  selfishness 
is  stronger  still.  The  man  reforms.  The  change  is 
recognized  at  once.  He  is  another  man.  After  the 
first  painful  acts  of  self-denial,  the  change  appears  de- 
lightful to  himself.  He  seems  once  more  to  walk 
erect.     A  new  direction  has  been  given  to  his  hopes 

VOL.  I. — 8* 


178  SERMONS. 

and  his  desires,  and,  like  Saul,  he  rejoices  that  the 
evil  spirit  has  departed  from  /lim.  At  first  he  is 
afraid  of  its  return,  and  keeps  strict  watch  against  the 
inroads  of  the  eneni}^.  By  degrees  he  grows  secure, 
and  his  vigils  are  relaxed.  The  temptation  presents 
itself  in  some  form,  so  contemptible  and  little  to  be 
feared,  that  he  would  blush  not  to  encounter  it.  He 
does  encounter  it.  He  fights  it.  He  appears  to  tri- 
umph for  a  moment,  but  is  ultimately  overcome.  The 
next  victory  is  easier.  The  next  is  easier  still.  He 
tries  to  recall  the  feelings  which  preceded  and  pro- 
duced his  reformation;  but  the  spell  is  over.  He 
knows  that  they  have  once  proved  ineffectual  to  save 
him,  and  he  trusts  in  them  no  longer.  Even  the 
checks  which  once  controlled  him  in  his  former  course 
of  sin  are  now  relaxed  ;  he  is  tired  of  opposition,  and 
seeks  refuge  from  his  self-contempt  in  desperate  in- 
dulgence. Do  you  believe  a  change  like  this  to  be 
unusual  in  real  life,  or  too  unimportant  to  be  fairly  rep- 
resented by  our  Saviour's  fearful  image  of  the  dis- 
possessed and  discontented  demon  coming  back  to 
the  emancipated  soul,  and  reasserting  his  dominion, 
till  "  the  last  state  of  that  man  is  worse  than  the 
first  ? " 

Another  man  passes  through  the  very  same  pro- 
cess of  reformation,  but  with  different  results.  His 
watch  against  the  inroads  of  his  once  besetting  sin  is 
still  maintained.  His  jealousy  and  dread  of  it  con- 
tinue unabated.  The  appetite  seems  to  sicken  and  to 
die.  He  is  indeed  a  new  man,  as  to  that  one  sin,  and 
rejoices  with  good  reason  that  the  fiend  has  left  him. 
As   the  habit   of  forbearance   gathers   strength,   lie 


LUKE  11,  26.  179 

learns  to  trust  in  his  own  power  of  resistance.  He 
naturally  measures  liis  morality  by  that  sin  which 
once  so  easily  beset  him.  Freedom  from  that  sin  is 
to  him  a  state  of  purity,  and  he  flatters  himself  that 
he  is  daily  growing  better.  But,  alas !  in  his  anxiety 
to  bar  one  door  against  the  enemy,  he  has  left  the  rest 
all  open.  A  successful  breach  is  made  in  his  de- 
fences by  an  unexpected  foe ;  perhaps  by  one  whom 
he  had  harbored  and  regarded  as  a  friend.  Before  he 
is  aware,  he  finds  himself  a  new  man  in  another 
sense.  The  evil  spirit  has  returned,  but  in  a  different 
shape,  and  taking  unopposed  possession,  is  again  his 
master.  The  reformed  drunkard  has  become  a  game- 
ster ;  the  reformed  prodigal  a  miser ;  the  reformed 
cheat  a  voluptuary.  Such  conversions  are  by  no 
means  rare — conversion  wrought  without  the  trouble- 
some aj)pliances  of  prayer,  or  preaching,  or  the  Holy 
Spirit.  In  all  such  cases  the  dominion  of  the  new- 
vice  will  probably  be  stronger  than  the  dominion  of 
the  old  one.  The  reaction  and  relapse  from  a  state  of 
self-denial  is  attended  by  an  impetus  which  makes  it- 
self to  be  perceived.  The  man,  as  it  were,  makes 
amends  to  himself  for  giving  up  his  former  sin  by 
larger  measures  of  indulgence  in  the  new  one.  The 
limits  which  impeded  his  indulgence  in  the  one  are 
perhaps  inapplicable  to  the  other  ;  and,  from  one  or 
the  other  of  these  causes,  or  from  both,  "  the  last  state 
of  that  man  is  worse  than  the  first." 

I  have  said,  that  in  this  case  the  anxiety  to  shut 
one  door  leaves  the  others  open.  Hence,  it  often  hap- 
pens that  the  soul  is  invaded,  not  by  one  new  spirit, 
out  by  many.     Imagining  that  abstinence  from  one 


180  SIHMONS. 

sin  is  morality,  the  man,  of  course,  falls  into  ethers ; 
and  the  conquest  of  the  citadel  is  frequej  tly  effected 
by  the  comhhied  force  of  the  enemy.  If  you  ask  the 
evil  spirit  which  at  first  has  possession  :  What  is  thy 
name  ?  you  may  receive  for  answer  :  Drunkenness,  or 
Avarice,  or  Lust.  But  ask  the  same  after  the  relapse, 
and  the  response  must  be  :  My  name  is  Legion.  Have 
you  not  seen  in  real  life  this  terrible  exchange  of  one 
besetting  sin  for  several  ?  Have  you  not  known 
men,  who  once  seemed  vulnerable  only  at  a  single 
point,  begin  to  appear  vulnerable,  as  it  were,  at  all 
points,  perhaps  with  the  exception  of  the  one  first  men- 
tioned ?  IS^ow,  when  this  is  the  case,  besides  the 
power  exerted  by  each  appetite  and  passion  on  the 
soul  distinctly,  there  is  a  debasing  and  debilitating 
influence  arising  from  the  conflict  which  exists  be- 
tween them.  Let  the  reformed  libertine  become  at 
once  ambitious,  avaricious,  and  revengeful,  and  let 
these  hungry  serpents  gnaw  his  soul,  and  it  will  soon 
be  seen  by  others,  if  not  felt  by  the  miserable  victim, 
that  the  evil  spirit  which  had  left  him  for  a  season  has 
returned  with  seven  others  worse  than  himself;  and, 
as  we  see  them  in  imagination  enter  the  dwelling 
swept  and  garnished  for  their  use,  we  may  read,  in- 
scribed above  the  portal  that  shuts  after  them,  "  the 
last  state  of  that  man  is  worse  than  the  first." 

Let  us  now  leave  the  regions  of  gross  vice,  with 
their  seeming  reformations  and  their  terrible  conver- 
sions from  one  sin  to  another,  or  from  one  to  many, 
and  breathe  for  a  while  the  atmosphere  of  decent  mor- 
als, under  the  influence  of  Christian  institutions.  Let 
me  show  you  one  who  never  was  the  slave  of  any  vice, 


LUKE  11,  26.  181 

and  whose  character  has  never  been  subjected  to  sus- 
picion. Such  are  always  to  be  found  among  those 
"who  have  enjoyed  a  religious  education  and  the 
means  of  grace.  Yet,  so  long  as  these  advantages  are 
unattended  by  a  change  of  heart,  the  evil  spirit  still 
maintains  possession.  Methinks  I  see  one  who  has 
long  held  a  high  place  in  the  public  estimation  as  a 
moral  and  conscientious  person,  but  whose  views  are 
bounded  by  the  sensible  horizon,  who  sees  nothing 
serious  in  religion,  or  deserving  of  profound  regard. 
All  is  sunshine.  Even  death,  while  distant,  has  no 
horrors,  and  the  world  beyond  is  blank.  The  past, 
the  present,  and  the  future  are  alike  themes  of  jest 
and  laughter.  But  the  scene  is  changed.  A  sudden 
shadow  falls  across  the  countenance  and  heart.  The 
laugher  becomes  grave.  He  indulges  for  the  first 
time  in  serious  reflection.  Without  knowing  whence 
his  change  of  feeling  comes,  he  yields  to  it,  and  it  in- 
creases. The  realities  of  life  are  seen  in  a  new  as- 
pect. What  mere  trifles  seem  momentous.  Sin  is  no 
longer  mocked  at,  and  the  grave  looks  dull  and  dreary. 
The  question  of  salvation  and  the  necessary  means  to 
it,  begins  to  be  considered,  and  the  world  begins  to 
see  that  he  who  once  was  so  light-hearted,  has  be- 
come, as  they  correctly  term  it,  serious.  The  dura- 
tion of  this  state  of  mind  is  indefinitely  variable.  Most 
men  experience  it  for  moments  or  for  hours,  many  for 
days  or  weeks,  and  some  for  months,  or  even  3^ears. 
In  many  cases  it  becomes  habitual ;  the  feelings  are 
adjusted  to  it ;  it  proceeds  no  further,  and  is  equiva- 
lent to  a  simple  change  of  temperament.  N^ay,  in 
some  cases,  while  the  appearance  lasts,  the  feeling  it- 


182  SERMONS. 

self  wears  away.  The  shadows  cast  by  some  myste- 
rious object  on  tlie  soul  are  graivially  mitigated  and 
reduced  in  depth,  until  the  sun  breaks  through  the 
intervening  obstacle,  and  broad  daylight  returns, 
The  sensation  of  this  change  is  naturally  pleasant.  It 
is  welcomed,  it  is  cherished,  till  the  ancient  habits  of 
the  mind  are  reinstated  in  their  full  dominion.  Even 
supposing  that  the  change  is  unaccompanied  by  any 
moral  renovation,  and  is  merely  an  alternation  or 
vicissitude  of  gaiety  and  sadness,  the  return  to  the  for- 
mer state  is  not  precisely  what  continuance  in  that 
state  would  have  been.  There  is  now  a  sensitive 
shrinking  from  all  gloomy  thoughts,  a  dread  of  soli- 
tude, an  instinctive  shunning  of  the  ordinary  means 
by  which  serious  reflection  is  produced.  Li  itself  this 
state  may  be  a  pleasing  one ;  but  with  respect  to  its 
effects,  it  is  worse  than  the  first. 

But  some  go  further.  Having  passed  through  the 
change  which  I  have  just  described — the  change  from 
levity  to  serious  reflection — they  reach  a  new  stage  of 
experience.  Sin,  which  was  heretofore  a  mere  ab- 
straction, or  at  most  the  name  of  certain  gross  enor- 
mities, is  seen  in  its  true  nature.  The  law  of  God  is 
seen  to  be  what  it  is.  The  conscience  is  awakened  to 
a  sense  of  guilt,  a  dread  of  wrath,  and  a  consciousness 
of  deserving  it.  Every  act  is  now  seen  to  have  a  moral 
quality.  The  man  grows  scrupulous.  He  who  was 
once  bold  to  commit  known  sin,  is  now  afraid  to  per- 
form even  innocent  actions.  The  burden  of  unex- 
piated  guilt  becomes  oppressive,  nay,  intolerable.  An 
undefined  anxiety  torments  him.  He  feels  that  some 
great  crisis  is  ap]3roaching.     Earthly  pleasures  grow 


LUKE  11,  26.  183 

icsipid.  The  cares  of  life  are  child's  play.  He  be- 
comes indifferent  to  life  or  death,  except  in  reference  to 
the  great  absorbing  question  of  salvation  or  perdition. 
The  intensity  with  which  he  seeks  relief  exhausts 
him.  He  begins  to  grow  languid.  His  alarm  sub 
sides  into  a  stupid  desperation.  As  this  new  sensa- 
tion creeps  upon  him,  he  is  conscious  of  relief  from 
the  poignant  anguish  of  his  former  state.  The  sooth- 
ing apathy  is  cherished.  Strong  emotion  is  excluded. 
Sin  seems  no  longer  so  repulsive  as  it  once  did. 
Words  begin  to  have  their  ancient  meanings,  and  to 
awaken  only  old  associations.  One  strong  impression 
is  effaced  after  another.  Conscience  slumbers.  Hope 
revives.  The  noise  of  the  world  again  rings  in  the 
ears.  The  dream  is  past ;  the  spell  is  broken ;  and 
the  once  convicted  sinner  is  himself  again.  He  has 
recovered  his  reason  ;  his  false  friends  assure  him — 
for  they  see  not  that  the  spirit  of  delusion  which  had 
left  him  for  a  season  has  returned  and  found  his  habi- 
tation swept  and  garnished,  and  shall  dwell  therein 
forever.  Ah,  sirs,  whatever  may  have  been-  the  first 
condition  of  the  man  who  has  passed  through  all  these 
changes,  there  is  little  risk  of  error  or  exaggeration  in 
saying  that  "  the  last  state  of  that  man  is  worse  than 
the  first." 

But  the  evil  spirit  does  not  measure  the  duration 
of  his  absence  by  any  settled  rule.  He  may  return 
before  the  truth  has  made  the  least  impression.  He 
may  wait  until  a  serious  state  of  mind  has  been  in- 
duced, but  come  back  before  the  soul  has  been  con- 
vinced of  sin.  Or  he  may  stay  until  a  lively  sense  of 
guilt  and  danger  has  been  wrought  upon  the  mind, 


184:  SERJIONS. 

whether  the  views  entertained  be  false  or  true  ;  and 
the  anguish  of  distress,  having  reached  its  extreme 
point,  instead  of  gradually  sinking  into  cold  insensi 
bility,  is  suddenly  succeeded  by  its  opposite — delight, 
joy,  happy  wonder.  At  this  most  critical  and  inter- 
esting juncture,  when  the  soul  seems  ready  to  em- 
brace and  rest  upon  the  truth  of  God,  the  enemy  re- 
turns, and  substitutes  a  false  hope  for  the  true  one ; 
he  encourages  the  false  joy  of  a  spurious  conversion. 
In  the  rapture  of  the  moment,  all  suspicion  and  all 
vigilance  appear  to  be  precluded,  and  the  soul  feeds 
upon  its  apples  of  Sodom  till  they  turn  to  ashes.  Then 
succeeds  misgiving,  unbelief,  displeasure,  shame,  de- 
spondency, temptation,  a  new  thirst  for  sinful  plea- 
sure, weak  resistance  to  the  enemy,  an  easy  conquest, 
stronger  chains,  a  deeper  dungeon,  and  eternal  bond- 
age. He  who  once  had  his  periodical  returns  of  sen- 
sibility, and  his  convulsive  efforts  to  be  free,  now  lies 
passive,  without  moving  hand  or  foot.  But  out  of 
the  deep  dungeon  where  he  thus  lies  motionless,  an 
unearthly  voice  may  be  heard  proclaiming,  with  a 
fiendish  satisfaction,  that  "  the  last  state  of  that  man 
is  worse  than  the  first." 

Even  this,  however,  docs  not  seem  to  be  the  far- 
thest length  to  wliich  the  soul,  forsaken  by  the  evil 
spirit,  may  be  suffered  to  proceed.  The  man,  from 
being  gay,  may  not  only  become  serious,  and  from 
being  serious,  convinced  of  guilt  and  danger,  and  de- 
sirous of  salvation,  and  from  this  state  pass  into  a  joy- 
ful sense  of  safety ;  but  he  may  long  remain  there, 
and  without  suspecting  where  his  error  lies,  may 
openly  acknowledge  his  experience  and  his  hopes,  and 


LUKE  11,  26.  185 

pass  the  bound  which  divides  professing  Christians 
from  the  world.  Methinks  I  see  one  who  has  thus 
been  forsaken  by  the  evil  spirit,  not  only  brought  into 
the  church,  but  made  conspicuous  in  it,  set  in  its  high 
places,  drunk  with  its  ilatteries ;  but  in  the  hour  of 
his  intoxicating  triumph,  as  he  lies  unarmed  and  un- 
protected, in  imaginary  safety,  the  tramp  of  armed 
men  is  heard  without,  the  sacred  precincts  of  the 
church  itself  are  suddenly  invaded,  his  old  master  is 
upon  him — has  returned  to  his  old  home — ^he  smiles 
to  see  it  swept  and  garnished  for  his  use.  He  takes 
possession  with  his  fellows,  never  more  to  be  cast  out. 
Even  such  are  not  beyond  the  reach  of  divine  mercy, 
but  it  is  not  ordinarily  extended  to  them,  as  appears 
from  the  images  by  which  the  state  of  such  is  repre- 
sented in  the  text.  The  oil  is  spent  and  the  lamp 
extinct.  The  axe  is  laid  at  the  root  of  the  tree.  Its 
fruit  is  withered,  nay,  it  is  without  fruit,  twice  dead, 
plucked  up  by  the  roots.  Twice  dead ! — oh,  fearful 
reflection  ;  dead  by  nature — then  apparently  alive — 
and  now  dead  by  relapse  and  by  apostasy.  Twice 
dead  and  plucked  up  by  the  roots.  Surely  such  a 
catastrophe  is  terrible  enough  to  be  the  work  of  one 
or  even  many  devils,  or  whatever  we  may  think  as  to 
their  literal  agency  in  bringing  it  about,  it  is  terrible 
enough  to  be  described  by  the  figure  which  our  Lord 
here  uses,  and  emphatically  summed  up  in  those  fear- 
ful words  "  the  last  state  of  that  man  is  worse  than 
the  first." 

There  is  but  one  more  view  that  I  can  take  or 
give  you  of  this  painful  subject.  Looking  back  to  the 
nonentity  from  which  we  all  have  sprung,  and  on  to 


186  SEKMONS. 

the  eternity  wliicli  awaits  ns  ail ;  tracing  the  down- 
ward progress  of  the  lost,  from  bad  to  worse,  from 
worse  to  worst,  marking  the  aggravated  guilt  of  each 
relapse  into  iniquity,  after  a  seeming  reformation  and 
conversion,  and  remembering  by  whom  and  of  whom 
it  was  said,  "  it  were  better  for  that  man  if  he  had 
never  been  born," — we  may  take  our  stand  between 
the  gulf  of  non-existence  and  the  gulf  of  damnation, 
and  comparing  the  negative  horrors  of  the  one  with 
the  positive  horrors  of  the  other,  may  exclaim,  as  we 
see  the  sinner  pass,  through  so  short  an  interval, 
'from  nothing,  into  hell,  "the  last  state  of  that  man 
is  worse  than  the  first  I" 

If  what  I  have  been  telling  you  is  true,  true  to  na- 
ture, scripture,  and  experience,  there  is  one  applica- 
tion or  improvement  of  the  truth,  which  ought  to  be 
self  evident.  I  mean  its  application  to  the  young,  to 
the  young  of  every  class,  and  character,  and  station, 
but  especially  to  such  as  are  peculiarly  environed  by 
temptation,  and  yet  prone  to  imagine,  as  a  vast  pro- 
portion of  the  young  do  really  imagine,  that  the 
wisest  course,  is  to  secure  the  pleasm*es  of  the  passing 
moment,  and  reserve  repentance  for  a  distant  future, 
thus  contriving,  by  wdiat  seems  to  be  a  master-stroke 
of  policy,  to  serve  God  and  Mammon  in  succession. 

Instead  of  arguing  against  this  resolution  as  ir 
rational  and  sinful,  let  me  hold  up  before  you  the 
conclusion  to  which  reason,  scripture,  and  experience, 
with  a  fearful  unanimity,  bear  witness  that  the  only 
spiritual  safety,  is  in  present  and  immediate  action ; 
that  a  purpose  or  a  promise  to  repent  hereafter,  is 
among  the  most  successful  arts  by  which  the  evil 


LUKE  11,  26.  187 

spirit  drowns  his  victims  in  tlie  deadly  sleep  of  false 
security  ;  that  previous  indulgence  in  a  life  of  sin,  so 
far  from  making  reformation  easy,  is  almost  sure  to 
make  it  utterly  impossible.     You  who  are,  even  at 
this  moment,  on  the  verge  of  the  appalling  precipice 
beneath  which  millions  have  been  dashed  to  pieces, 
stop,  if  it  be  but  for  a  moment,  and  consider.     The 
comparative  innocence  of  childhood,  the  restraints  of 
a  religious  education,  the  very  resolutions  you  are 
forming  for  the  future,  may  all  be  looked  upon  as  in- 
dications that  the  evil  spirit  to  whom  you  are  by  na- 
ture a  hereditary  slave,  has,  for   the  time,  relaxed 
his  hold  upon  you  ;  his  chain,  though  still  unbroken, 
may  be  lengthened,  but  beware  how   you  imagine 
that,  without  divine  grace,  you  can  ever  break  it.     It 
may  be  that  the  unclean  spirit  has  but  left  you  for  a 
time,  and  is  even  now  wandering  through  dry  places, 
seeking  rest  and  finding  none — roaming  in  search  of 
a  repose  which  is  impossible,  and  gaining  in  malignity 
and  craft  at  every  moment — mustering  new  strength 
of  purpose,  virulence  of  hatred,  and  capacity  of  tor- 
ment and  corruption,  to  accelerate  your  fall,  embitter 
your  remorse,  and  deepen  your  damnation.     At  every 
access  of  temptation  from  without,  and  every  move- 
ment of  corruption  from  within,  imagine  that  you 
hear  the  foul  fiend  knocking  for  admission  ;  and  dis- 
trusting the  strength  of  your  defenses,  fly  to  Christ 
for  aid.     Without  it  you  are  lost.     Without  it  your 
best  efforts,  in  your  own  strength,  are  unavailing. 


X. 


Romans  16,  21. — To  God  only  wise,  be  glory  through  Jesus  Christ 
forever.    Amen. 

Among  the  peculiar  features  of  the  sacred  writings 
are  its  numerous  benedictions  and  doxologies.  The 
former  are  expressions  of  devout  desire  that  man  may 
be  blessed  of  God  ;  the  latter,  that  God  may  be  hon- 
ored of  man.  They  are  the  strongest  verbal  expres- 
sions of  that  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  which  are 
together  the  fulfilling  of  the  law.  Doxologies  are  fre- 
quent in  both  Testaments,  benedictions  chiefly  in  the 
New,  because  so  large  a  part  of  it  is  in  the  epistolary 
form,  affording  frequent  opportunities  for  the  expres- 
sion of  benevolent  wishes.  A  solemn  benediction, 
however,  formed  a  part  of  the  solemnities  of  public 
worship  under  the  old  economy.  The  form  pre- 
scribed is  still  on  record  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  Num- 
bers (v.  22), — "  The  Lord  spake  unto  Moses,  saying, 
Speak  unto  Adam  and  unto  his  sons,  saying.  On  this 
wise  ye  shall  bless  the  children  of  Israel  saying  unto 
them.  The  Lord  bless  thee  and  keep  thee  :  The  Lord 
make  his  face  shine  upon  thee  and  be  gracious  unto 
thee  :  The  Lord  lift  up  his  countenance  upon  thee  and 
give  thee  peace." 

The  use  of  the  dpxology  in  public  worship  is  ap- 


ROMANS  16,  ST.  189 

parent  from  the  inspired  liturgy  of  the  ancient  church, 
the  Book  of  Psalms.  This  book  has  long  been  di- 
vided into  five  large  portions,  the  close  of  each  being 
indicated  by  a  doxology.  Thus  the  41st  psalm  ends 
with  these  words  :  "  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel  from  everlasting  to  everlasting.  Amen  and 
amen."  The  72d  psalm  :  "  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God, 
the  God  of  Israel,  who  only  doeth  wondrous  things  ; 
and  blessed  be  his  glorious  name  forever,  and  let  the 
whole  earth  be  filled  with  his  glory.  Amen  and  amen. 
The  89th :  Blessed  be  the  Lord  for  evermore.  Amen 
and  amen.  The  106th :  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel  from  everlasting  to  everlasting :  and  let  all  the 
people  say  Amen — Praise  ye  the  Lord  !  The  150th : 
Let  every  thing  that  hath  breath  praise  the  Lord : 
praise  ye  the  Lord !  Whether  this  fivefold  division 
of  the  Psalter  is  of  ancient  date,  and  these  doxologies 
were  originally  intended  to  mark  the  conclusion  of  the 
several  parts ;  or  whether  the  division  was  itself  sug- 
gested to  the  rabbins,  from  whom  we  have  received 
it,  by  the  fortuitous  recurrence  of  these  formulas  at 
tolerably  regular  intervals,  may  be  disputed  ;  but,  in 
either  case,  the  familiar  use  of  the  doxology  in  wor- 
ship by  the  ancient  saints  is  evident. 

But  in  the  New  Testament  there  is  this  peculiar 
circumstance,  that  the  doxologies,  though  still  more 
numerous  than  in  the  Old,  occur  in  such  connections, 
and,  as  already  hinted,  in  such  kinds  of  composition 
as  to  be  not  merely  formulas  for  common  use,  but 
spontaneous  ebullitions  of  devout  affection.  As  such, 
they  show  more  clearly  than  any  other  form  of  speech 
could,  the  habitual  bent  of  the  affections,  on  the  part 


190  SERMONS. 

of  the  inspired  writers,  the  favorite  subject  cf  theif 
thoughts,  the  points  to  which  their  minds  instinctively 
reverted,  not  only  as  the  customary  theme  of  usual 
meditation,  but  as  the  great  object  of  desire  and  hope. 
As  they  never  forgot,  in  care  for  self,  the  interest  of 
others,  so  they  never  forgot,  in  care  for  others,  that 
God  was  to  be  honored ;  that  of  him,  and  through 
him,  and  to  him,  are  all  things ;  that  to  him  must  be 
glory  forever. 

Of  the  twenty-one  epistles  contained  in  the  !N"ew 
Testament,  seventeen  begin  with  a  solemn  benedic- 
tion, and  sixteen  close  with  one.  Two  others  close 
with  a  doxology,  instead  of  a  benediction,  while  one 
concludes  and  two  begin  with  a  benediction  and  dox- 
ology together  ;  and  another  substitutes  a  malediction 
for  the  latter.  But  it  is  not  merely  in  these  solemn 
openings  and  closings  of  the  canonical  epistles  that 
the  doxology  occurs.  It  is  sometimes  interposed  be- 
tween the  links  of  a  concatenated  argument,  or  in  the 
midst  of  a  detailed  description.  This  is  especially  the 
case  when  something  has  been  said  which  seems  to 
savour  of  irreverence  towards  God,  in  order  to  express 
the  writer's  protestation  against  any  such  construction 
of  his  language,  or  to  disavow  his  concurrence  in  such 
language  used  by  others,  or  his  approbation  of  their 
wicked  conduct.  Thus,  in  the  first  chapter  (v.  25)  of 
this  epistle,  Paul  describes  the  heathen  as  having 
"  changed  the  truth  of  God  into  a  lie,  and  worshipped 
and  served  the  creature  more  than  the  Creator  who  is 
blessed  forever,  amen."  And  again,  in  the  eleventh 
chapter,  after  indignantly  repelling  the  suggestion  that 
man  can  add  any  thing  to  God,  and  argumentatively 


ROMANS  16,  27.  191 

showing  its  absurdity,  he  winds  up  his  argument  by 
an  adoring  exclamation,  a  triumphant  interrogation, 
and  a  devout  doxology.  "  Oh,  the  depth  of  the 
riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God ! 
How  unsearchable  are  his  judgments,  and  his  ways 
past  finding  out !  For  who  hath  known  the  mind 
of  the  Lord,  or  who  hath  been  his  counsellor  ?  Or 
who  hath  first  given  to  him,  and  it  shall  be  re- 
compensed to  him  again?  For  of  him,  and  through 
him,  and  to  him  are  all  things,  to  whom  be  glory,  for- 
ever, amen."  It  is  by  these  apparently  misplaced  as- 
crijDtions  of  all  honor  to  God,  that  are  occurring  where 
the  ordinary  usages  of  composition  lead  us  to  expect 
them  least,  it  is  by  these  that  the  habitual  bent  of  the 
Apostle's  thoughts  and  feelings  is  most  clearly  mani- 
fested. Such  ejaculations,  in  the  midst  of  ordinary 
speech,  may  indeed  be  the  mere  eflfect  of  sanctimo- 
nious habit,  and  have  often  been  so ;  but,  where  in- 
spiration sets  the  seal  of  authenticity  on  all  the  emo- 
tions and  desires  expressed,  there  could  not  be  a  more 
unerring  symptom  of  a  heart  overflowing  with  devout 
affections. 

There  are  two  things  included  in  a  doxology — the 
expression  of  a  wish  and  the  performance  of  a  duty. 
The  writer  gives  utterance  to  his  desire  that  God  may 
be  glorified,  and  at  the  same  time  actually  glorifies 
him,  and  is  the  occasion  of  his  being  glorified  by  all 
who  read  or  hear  his  words,  with  understanding  and 
with  cordial  acquiescence  in  the  sentiment  expressed ; 
for  God  himself  has  said,  "  Whoso  oflfereth  praise  glo- 
rifieth  me."  By  these  interruptions  of  their  doctrinal 
discussions,  therefore,  the  inspired  writers  have  not 


192  SERMONS. 

only  manifested  their  own  dispositions,  and  actually 
glorified  God  themselves,  but  led  to  the  performance 
of  the  same  act  by  innumerable  readers  and  hearers. 
There  is  something  truly  ennobling  and  exciting  in 
the  Christian  doctrine  that,  although  God  is  infinitely 
blessed  in  himself,  and  man  incapable  of  adding  to 
his  essential  excellence,  there  is  yet  a  sense  in  which 
he  may  be  glorified  or  rendered  glorious  even  by  the 
humblest  of  his  creatures.  To  render  God  thus  glo- 
rious by  manifesting  and  according  his  perfections,  is 
the  very  end  of  our  existence,  the  pursuit  of  which 
sets  before  us  a  boundless  field  of  exertion  and  enjoy- 
ment. The  prominence  given  to  this  motive  in  the 
Christian  system,  is  one  of  the  marks  by  which  it  is 
most  clearly  distinguished  from  all  others,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  of  the  strongest  proofs  of  its  divinity. 

The  constituent  parts  of  a  Christian  doxology  have 
already  been  described.  As  another  essential  feature 
may  be  mentioned  that  they  are  always  and  exclusiveh" 
addressed  to  God.  The  jealousy  of  the  inspired 
writer,  as  to  this  point,  is  remarkable.  Their  doxolo- 
gies  not  only  include  the  name  of  God  as  their  great 
subject,  but  they  always  occur  in  connections  where 
he  has  already  been  the  subject  of  discourse.  To  him 
the  glory  is  ascribed,  to  the  exclusion  of  false  gods 
and  of  men,  but  especially  of  self.  The  spirit  of  these 
doxologies  is  everywhere  the  same — "  Not  unto  us, 
oh  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but  to  thy  name  give  glory." 
The  very  design  of  the  doxologies  of  Scripture  is  to 
turn  away  the  thoughts  from  man  to  God,  from  the  crea- 
ture to  "  the  Creator  who  is  blessed  forever,  amen." 
When  they  occur  at  the  beginning  of  a  passage  or  a 


KOMANS  IG,  27.  193 

book,  they  seem  to  remind  the  reader  that,  in  order 
to  go  right,  he  must  set  out  from  God.  When  at  the 
close,  they  teach  him  to  remember  the  great  end  of 
his  existence.  When  they  interrupt  the  tenor  of  dis- 
course, they  answer  the  salutary  purpose  of  checking 
the  tendency  to  lose  sight  of  God  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  other  objects.  Thus,  according  to  their  rela- 
tive positions,  they  continually  teach  us  or  remind  us 
that  "  of  him,  and  to  him,  and  through  him,  are  all 
things,  to  whom  be  glory  forever,  amen."  It  is  not, 
therefore,  a  mere  incidental  circumstance,  but  an  es- 
sential feature  of  the  scriptural  doxologies,  that  they 
have  reference  to  God  and  God  alone. 

The  only  seeming  excej)tion  to  this  general  state- 
ment, really  confirms  it.  There  are  doxologies  to 
Jesus  Christ,  but  as  a  divine  person.  It  is  because 
he  is  God  that  glory  is  ascribed  to  him.  In  the  pres- 
ent instance,  there  is  a  singular  ambiguity  of  con- 
struction in  the  original.  The  literal  translation  of 
the  words  is  this :  "  To  the  only  wise  God,  through 
Jesus  Christ,  to  whom  be  glory  forever."  In  the 
common  version  the  ambiguity  is  removed  by  the 
omission  of  the  relative.  The  true  construction  may  be 
this  :  "  Glory  be  to  the  only  wise  God,  through  Jesus 
Christ,  to  whom  be  glory  likewise  forever,  amen." 
As  it  stands,  however,  it  seems  doubtful  whether 
Christ  is  expressly  mentioned  merely  as  a  means 
or  also  as  an  end,  whether  merely  as  an  instrument 
of  glorifying  God,  or  also  as  an  object  to  be  glorified 
himself.  This  very  dubiety  of  phrase,  however,  seems 
to  justify  us  in  embracing  both  ideas  in  our  explica- 
tion of  the  terms.     It  is  highly  probable,  indeed,  as 

VOL.  I. — 9 


194  SERMONS. 

already  suggested,  that  both  were  designed  to  be  ex- 
pressed ;  that  Christ  was  meant  to  be  exhibited,  at 
one  view,  as,  in  some  sense,  the  medium  by  which 
God  is  or  may  be  glorified ;  and,  as  himself,  entitled 
to  that  glory  which  belongs  to  God ;  and  the  anoma- 
lous construction  may  have  arisen,  not  from  inadver- 
tence or  excited  feeling,  but  from  a  desire  to  suggest 
these  two  ideas  simultaneously.  The  latter,  it  is 
true,  might  be  considered  doubtful  if  this  were  the 
only  case  in  which  he  is  the  subject  ofadoxology 
But  this  is  far  from  being  true.  When  Jude,  in  the 
close  of  his  epistle,  says,  "  To  the  only  wise  God,  our 
Saviour,  be  glory  and  majesty,  dominion  and  power, 
both  now  and  ever,  amen,"  it  may  be  plausibly  al- 
leged that  he  is  speaking  only  of  God  in  his  character 
of  Saviour  or  Deliverer,  without  express  allusion  to 
the  incarnation,  and  that  the  cases,  therefore,  are  not 
parallel.  Even  admitting  this  to  be  the  fact,  the 
^arae  thing  cannot  be  alleged  of  Paul's  wish,  that  the 
God  of  peace  would  make  the  Hebrew  Christians  per- 
fect in  every  good  work  to  do  his  will,  working  in 
them  that  which  is  well  pleasing  in  His  sight,  through 
Jesus  Christ,  to"  whom  be  glory  forever  and  ever, 
amen.  Or,  if  it  should  be  said  that,  even  here,  al- 
though Christ  is  the  immediate  antecedent,  the  God 
of  Peace  is  the  main  subject  of  the  sentence,  and  to 
him  the  doxology  must  be  referred,  there  is  still  a 
case  in  which  no  such  grammatical  refinement  will 
avail  to  make  the  reference  to  Christ  uncertain.  I 
mean  tlie  doxology  which  closes  the  second  epistle  of 
Peter,  where  there  is  no  double  subject  to  confuse 
the  sense,  or  render  the  interpretation  doubtful.     The 


KOMANS  IG,  27.  195 

Apostle  closes  with  a  simple  exliortation  to  "  grow  in 
grace  and  in  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ.  To  him  be  glory  both  now  and  forever, 
amen."  This  text  is  not  only  unambiguous  itself,  but 
serves  to  throw  light  upon  those  which  are  more 
doubtful.  If  Christ,  in  this  case,  is  the  evident  and 
only  subject  of  the  doxology,  there  is  no  longer  any 
reason  in  explaining  the  one  quoted  from  Hebrews, 
for  overleaping  the  immediate  antecedent;  and,  with 
respect  to  that  in  Jude,  there  is  at  least  some  ground 
for  regarding  "  God  our  Saviour  "  as  descriptive  of 
the  same  blessed  person.  "While  it  remains  true, 
therefore,  thatrthe  Scriptural  doxologies  never  have 
reference  to  any  subject  less  than  God,  it  is  equally 
true  that  Jesus  Christ  is  a  partaker  in  these  exclusive 
divine  honors.  "VVe  need  feel  no  hesitation,  therefore, 
in  adopting  such  an  explanation  of  the  text  as  will 
exhibit  Christ  not  only  in  the  character  of  a  revealer 
and  a  glorifier,  but  in  that  of  a  glorified  being ;  not 
only  of  creature  but  Creator ;  not  only  man  but  God ; 
God  over  all,  blessed  forever. 

There  is  another  circumstance  to  be  attended  to  in 
the  doxologies  of  Scripture.  Being  ascriptions  of 
glory  to  God  exclusively  of  all  mere  creatures,  they 
might  seem  to  require  nothing  more  than  a  bare 
mention  of  his  name,  or  the  most  general  descrip- 
tion of  his  nature.  And  in  some  cases  nothing  more 
is  given.  But  in  others,  the  mind  of  the  doxolo- 
gist  appears  to  have  been  fastened  specially  on  some 
one  aspect  of  the  divine  character,  some  attribute,  or 
group  of  attributes,  as  the  foundation  of  his  claim  to 
universal  and  perpetual  praise.     Thus,  in  the  case  be- 


196  SERMONS. 

fore  us,  while  the  text  embraces  the  doxology  itself, 
the  two  preceding  verses  contain  the  preamble,  or  ex- 
planatory preface,  setting  forth  the  grounds  on  which 
the  doxology  is  made  to  rest.  The  first  of  these  is  the 
omnij)otence  of  God,  or  rather  the  omnipotence  of  his 
grace  ;  for  the  allusion  is  not  merely  to  the  creative 
and  sustaining  power  of  God,  but  to  his  infinite  abil- 
ity to  perfect  what  he  had  begun  in  all  believers — 
the  new  creation  of  a  spiritual  nature  on  the  ruins  of 
that  righteousness  which  man  had  lost.  "  ISTow,  to 
him  that  is  of  power  to  stablish  you  according  to  my 
gospel,  &c.,  to  God  only  wise  be  glory  through  Jesus 
Christ  forever,  amen."  A  more  general,  but  equally 
emphatic,  (declaration  of  the  same  kind  may  be  found 
in  the  third  chapter  of  Ephesians,  where  the  Apostle, 
after  expressing  an  importunate  desire  for  the  spirit- 
ual progress  and  perfection  of  the  Christians  whom  he 
was  addressing,  adds :  "  Now  unto  him  that  is  able 
to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above  all  that  we  ask  or 
think,  according  to  the  power  that  worketh  in  us — 
unto  him  be  glory  in  the  church  by  Jesus  Christ 
throughout  all  ages,  world  without  end,  amen." 

Another  attribute  thus  singled  out  to  be  the  ground 
of  a  doxology,  is  wisdom,  the  intellectual  omnipotence 
of  God  in  working  out  his  purposes  by  chosen  means. 
In  rational  beings,  this  view  of  the  divine  perfections 
is  peculiarly  adapted  to  excite  astonishment  and  ad- 
miration. The  universal  jDresence  and  activity  of 
mind  throughout  the  vast  frame  of  nature  and  ma- 
chinery of  Providence,  the  triumph  of  that  all-per- 
vading mind  over  matter,  over  other  minds,  over  ap- 
parent difficulties  springing  from  the  natural  relations 


\i 


ROMANS  16,  27.  197 

of  one  being  to  another  ;  the  wonderfu.  results  evolved 
from  causes  and  by  means  apparently  least  fitted  to 
produce  them ;  the  indisputable  evidence  contained 
in  such  facts  of  one  harmonious  design  and  one  con- 
trolling power,  through  a  series  of  events  which,  as 
they  happened,  seemed  fortuitous  and  unconnected, 
independent  of  each  other,  and  of  any  higher  princi- 
ple than  this — this  divine  wisdom  is  indeed  an  ample 
and  satisfying  reason  for  ascribing  glory  to  the  being 
who  possesses  it,  not  only  as  considered  in  himself, 
but  as  compared  with  others  ;  not  merely  as  wise,  but 
as  only  wise,  alone  entitled  to  be  so  considered,  since 
the  wisdom  of  all  other  beings  is  not  only  infinitely 
less  than  His,  but  derived  directly  from  him — the 
gift  of  his  bounty,  the  creature  of  his  power,  a  drop 
trickling  from  the  ocean,  a  spark  kindled  at  the  sun. 
Tlie  only  true  wisdom  upon  earth  is  "  wisdom  that 
Cometh  from  above."  The  wisdom  that  sets  itself  in 
opposition  to  the  wisdom  of  God,  is  earthly,  sensual, 
and  devilish — is  folly  in  the  lowest  and  worst  sense. 
Tlie  admiration  thus  expressed  in  Scripture  for  God's 
wisdom,  is  an  admiration  which  implies  contempt  of 
all  opposing  claims — an  admiration  which  belittles, 
nay,  annihilates  all  other  in  comparison.  God  is  not 
merely  wise,  but  only  wise  ;  not  merely  wiser  than  all 
other  gods — which  would  be  saying  nothing,  since  we 
know  that  an  idol  is  nothing  in  the  world — not  only 
wiser  than  the  brutes,  than  man,  than  devils,  than 
angels,  but  so  far  exalted  above  them,  each  individu- 
ally, and  all  collectively,  that  when  confronted  with 
the  aggregate  intelligence  of  all  ages  and  all  worlds, 
He  alone  is  wise. 


198  SERMONS. 

This  sublime  description  of  Jeliovah.  as  "  the  only 
wise  God,"  is  not  peculiar  to  the  text.  It  occurs  not 
only  in  other  places,  but  in  other  doxologies,  as  an 
appropriate  and  ample  ground  for  the  ascription  of 
eternal  praise.  The  same  apostle,  writing  to  Timothy, 
after  speaking  in  the  most  affecting  terms  of  his  own 
character  before  conversion,  and  expressing  his  grati- 
tude that  he  should  have  been  honoured  with  permis- 
sion to  preach  Christ,  adds,  in  the  manner  which  has 
been  described  already,  as  characteristic  of  his  writings 
and  his  spirit — "  Xow  unto  the  King  eternal,  im- 
mortal, invisible,  the  only  wise  God,  be  honour  and 
glory  forever  and  ever.  Amen."  (1  Tim.  1,  IT.)  And 
another  apostle,  in  a  doxology  already  quoted,  con- 
nects an  appeal  to  the  power  of  God  in  his  preamble 
with  a  reference  to  his  wisdom  in  the  doxology  itself — 
*'  Now  unto  him  that  is  able  to  keep  yon  from  falling, 
and  to  present  you  faultless  before  the  presence  of  his 
glory  with  exceeding  joy — to  the  only  wise  God  our 
Saviour  be  glory  and  majesty,  dominion  and  power, 
both  now  and  ever,  Amen." 

AVe  have  seen  that  the  doxologies  cf  Scripture, 
though  they  sometimes  speak  of  God  in  general  terms 
merely,  often  specify  some  attribute  as  giving  him  a 
peculiar  claim  to  the  adoring  admiration  of  his  crea- 
tures. "We  have  also  seen  that  the  attribute  of  wis- 
dom is  repeatedly  thus  singled  out  and  rendered 
prominent.  It  may  now  be  added  that  it  is  not  merely 
the  wisdom  of  God  in  general  that  is  thus  held  up  to 
view.  There  is  a  certain  manifestation  of  his  wisdom 
which  is  placed  above  all  others — not  the  wisdom  dis- 
played in  the  creation  of  the  universe,  or  in  its  sus- 


ROMANS  IG,  27.  199 

tentatiou  ;  not  the  wisdom  displayed  in  the  common 
dispensations  of  his  providence,  or  even  in  those  ex- 
traordinary methods  which  he  sometimes  uses  to  effect 
his  purpose.  These  are  all  recognized  and  repre- 
sented as  becoming  subjects  of  our  praise  and  medita- 
tion. But  none  of  them  is  set  forth  as  the  great, 
peculiar,  and  decisive  evidence  that  God  alone  is  wise. 
That  evidence  is  sought  in  the  system  of  redemption, 
in  the  means  devised  for  the  deliverance  of  man  from 
the  inevitable  consequences  of  his  own  transgressions. 
And  this  selection  is  entirely  justified,  even  at  the  bar 
of  human  reason,  by  several  obvious  considerations. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  magnitude  of  the  end  to  be  ac- 
complished. Tlie  second  is  the  difficulty  of  effecting  it 
— a  difficulty  springing,  not  from  fortuitous  or  out- 
ward circumstances,  but  from  essential  principles, 
from  the  nature  of  sin,  from  the  nature  of  God  himself. 
To  the  extent  of  this  difiiculty,  justice  never  can  be 
done  by  our  conceptions.  Its  existence  may  be  re- 
cognized, its  reality  admitted,  but  its  magnitude  can- 
not be  adequately  measured.  The  hypothesis  of  infi- 
nite holiness  and  justice,  as  essential  to  God's  nature, 
seems  to  render  the  pardon  of  sin,  if  once  committed, 
and  the  salvation  of  the  sinner  so  impossible,  that  un- 
assisted reason  reels  and  staggers  under  the  attempt 
to  reconcile  apparent  contradictions.  But  this  recon- 
ciliation God  has  effected ;  he  has  solved  the  problem ; 
he  has  practically  shown  us  how  he  can  be  just  and 
yet  justify  the  vmgodly.  Keason  approves  of  this  so- 
lution when  presented,  but  could  never  have  discov- 
ered it.  No  created  skill  or  strength  could  have  sur- 
mounted difficulties  so  appalling. 


200  SERMONS. 

This,  then,  is  a  second  reasor  for  regarding  the 
method  of  salvation  as  the  greates--  and  most  glorious 
display  of  divine  wisdom.  A  third  is  the  absolute 
success  of  the  experiment,  if  such  it  may  be  called. 
Where  the  end  is  so  important,  and  difhculties  so 
great,  a  partial  attainment  of  the  end  might  be  re- 
garded as  a  great  achievement.  Failure,  in  some 
respect,  in  some  degree,  might  be  forgiven,  for  the 
sake  of  what  is  really  accomplished.  But,  when  all 
is  done  that  was  attempted,  and  when  all  that  is  done 
is  completely  done,  the  means  being  perfectly  adapted 
to  the  end,  and  the  magnitude  of  the  difficulties  fairly 
matched,  nay,  far  surpassed,  by  that  of  the  provision 
made  to  meet  them,  this  is  indeed  a  triumph  of  wis- 
dom— such  a  triumph  as  created  wisdom  never  could 
achieve — such  a  triumph  as  could  only  be  achieved  by 
Him  who  claims  and  is  entitled  to  the  glorious  dis- 
tinction of  THE  OXLY  W^SE  GoD. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  tliat  in  those  dox- 
ologies  which  make  the  divine  wisdom  their  great 
subject,  this  pre-eminent  display  of  it  in  the  system 
of  redemption,  in  the  person  and  the  cross  of  Jesus 
Christ,  as  the  great  centre  of  that  system,  should  be 
brought  distinctly  into  view.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  in  sucb  connexions,  the  gospel  should  be  repre- 
sented as  a  stupendous  revelation  of  God's  wisdom, 
as  disclosing  what  the  wisdom  of  man  could  neither 
have  invented  nor  discovered;  that  tbe  doctrine  of 
salvation  should  be  called  a  mystery,  a  truth  beyond 
the  reach  of  unassisted  reason,  until  made  known  by 
a  special  revelation  ;  a  demonstration,  therefore,  both 
of  human  folly  and  of  divine  wisdom,  a  proof  of  what 


ROMANS  15,  27.  201 

man  cannot  do,  and  what  God  can  do.  Thus  in 
■writing  to  Timothy,  when  Paul  breaks  ont  into  that 
grand  doxologj  already  qnoted,  "  now  unto  the  ELing 
eternal,  immortal,  invisible,  the  only  wise  God,  be 
honour  and  glory,  for  ever  and  ever.  Amen,"  it  is 
immediately  preceded,  with  the  exception  of  a  paren- 
thetical allusion  to  the  final  cause  of  the  apostle's 
own  conversion,  by  that  memorable  summary  of  the 
gospel,  "  this  is  a  faithful  saying  and  worthy  of  all 
acceptation,  that  Jesus  Christ  came  into  the  world  to 
save  sinners."  It  was  this  appearance  of  the  Son  of 
God  for  such  a  purpose  that  presents  itself  to  the 
apostle's  mind  as  the  masterstroke  of  wisdom,  and 
afibrds  a  ground  for  the  doxology  that  follows,  to  the 
o:jfLT  WISE  God.  And  even  where  the  name  of  Christ 
does  not  appear,  as  in  the  closing  words  of  Jude's 
epistle,  the  same  idea  is  suggested  by  the  epithet  con- 
nected with  the  name  of  God  himself.  It  is  not  to 
God  our  creator,  our  preserver,  or  our  providential 
benefactor ;  it  is  not  to  God  our  sovereign,  our  law- 
giver, or  our  judge,  that  supremacy  in  wisdom 
is  directly  ascribed,  but  to  the  only  wise  God  our 
Saviour,  be  glory  and  honour,  dominion  and  power, 
both  now  and  ever.  Amen."  The  doxology  which 
closes  the  third  chapter  of  Ephesians,  is  merely  the 
winding  up  of  one  long  sentence  coextensive  with  the 
chapter,  in  which  the  apostle  repeatedly  mentions  the 
preaching  of  the  gospel,  and  especially  its  open  proc- 
lamation to  the  Gentiles,  as  the  revelation  of  a  mys- 
tery, concealed  for  ages  from  mankind  in  general, 
but  made  known  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  Prophets  and 
Apostles,  a  mystery  which  from  the  beginning  of  the 

VOL.  I. — 9* 


202  SERMONS. 

world  was  hid  in  God  ;  a  mystery,  i.  e.  a  triitli  which 
human  wisdom  could  not  have  discovered,  the  dis- 
closure of  which,  therefore,  tends  to  illustrate  and  mag- 
nify the  wisdom  of  God,  Precisely  the  same  refer- 
ence to  Christ  and  the  gospel  of  Salvation,  as  the 
master-piece  of  wisdom,  no  less  than  of  mercy,  may 
be  found  in  the  preamble  to  the  text  before  us,  where 
the  ascription  of  glory  to  God  is  founded  on  his  wis- 
dom, and  his  wisdom  argued  from  the  manifestation, 
in  the  gospel,  of  a  method  of  salvation,  which  the 
human  mind  could  never  have  discovered,  and  which 
is  therefore  called  a  mystery,  a  secret  brought  to  light 
by  no  exertion  of  mere  reason,  but  by  direct  com- 
munication from  above,  from  Him  whose  wisdom  was 
alone  sufficient  to  devise  and  to  reveal  it.  "  JSTow  to 
him  that  is  of  power  to  stablish  you  according  to  my 
gospel,  and  the  preaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  according 
to  the  revelation  of  the  mystery  which  was  kept  secret 
suice  the  world  began,  but  now  is  made  manifest,  and 
by  the  Scriptures  of  the  prophets  according  to  the 
commandment  of  the  everlasting  God,  made  known 
to  all  nations  for  the  obedience  of  faith,  to  God  only 
wise,  be  glory,  through  Jesus  Christ,  for  ever.  Amen. 
From  a  comparison  of  all  these  passages,  it  is 
evident  that  while  the  sacred  writers  no  doubt  re- 
cognized the  proofs  of  divine  wisdom,  furnished  by 
the  works  of  nature,  and  the  movements  of  provi- 
dence, their  minds  were  habitually  fastened  on  the 
method  of  salvation  taught  in  Scr:pture,  as  the 
grand  decisive  proof  by  which  all  others  are  sur- 
passed and  superseded.  It  was  through  Christ, 
not  only  as  the  brightness  of  God's  glory  and  the 


ROMANS  16,  27.  203 

image  of  liis  person,  but  as  a  saviour,  a  propitiation 
set  forth  by  God  himself,  a  means  devised  and  pro- 
vided by  him  for  the  accomplishment  of  what  ap- 
peared impossible ;  it  was  through  Christ,  considered 
in  this  light,  that  the  lustre  of  God's  Avisdom  shone 
with  dazzling  brightness  upon  Paul  and  Jude  and 
Peter.  Hence  there  is  no  absurdity  in  holding,  as 
some  have  done,  that  the  words  "  through  Jesus  Christ," 
in  the  text,  are  to  be  construed,  not  with  "  glory,"  but 
with  "  the  only  wise  God,"  by  which,  in  the  Greek, 
they  are  immediately  preceded.  As  if  he  had  said : 
"  to  him,  who  in  the  person,  work,  and  sufferings  of 
his  Son,  has  revealed  himself  to  us  as  the  only  wise 
God,  to  him  be  glory  for  ever.  Amen."  At  the  same 
time,  the  unusual  collocation  of  the  words,  and  the 
irregular  construction  of  the  sentence,  seem  to  author- 
ize, if  not  to  require,  that  Jesus  Christ  himself  should 
be  included  in  the  description  of  the  object  to  which 
glory  is  ascribed.  "  To  God  only  wise,  made  known 
as  such  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  Jesus  Christ  himself 
as  God,  be  glory  forever."  Nor  is  this  the  only  sense 
which  may  be  put  upon  the  pregnant  phrase  through 
Jesus  Christ.  Tlie  simplest  and  most  obvious,  and 
indeed  the  only  one  expressed  by  the  sentence  in  the 
common  version  is,  that  Christ  is  the  medium  through 
which  the  divine  wisdom  is  and  must  be  glorified. 
Not  only  does  he  share,  by  right  of  his  divinity,  in 
all  the  divine  honours.  Not  only,  by  his  mediation 
and  atoning  passion,  does  he  furnish  the  most  lumi- 
nous display  of  divine  wisdom.  But  as  head  of  the 
Church,  and  as  the  father  of  a  spiritual  seed,  to  whom 
that  wisdom  is,  and  ever  will  be,  an  object  of  adoring 


204  SERMONS. 

admiration,  and.  as  their  ever-living  and  prevailing  in- 
tercessor with  the  Father,  he  is  the  means,  the  instru- 
ment, the  channel  through  which  everlasting  glory 
shall  be  given  to  the  only  wise  God,  who  has  estab- 
lished a  church,  and  caused  the  gospel  to  be  preached 
for  this  very  purpose,  "  to  the  intent  that  now  unto 
the  principalities  and  powers  in  heavenly  places 
might  be  known  by  the  church  the  manifold  wisdom 
of  God  ;  unto  Hjm  be  glory,  in  the  church,  by  Jesus 
Christ,  through  all  ages,  world  Avithout  end,  Amen." 
(Eph.  3,  10.  21.) 

To  this  doxology,  as  well  as  to  the  others  which 
the  word  of  God  contains,  the  pious  in  all  ages  have 
been  wont  to  say  Amen.  This  ancient  expression  of 
assent  to  prayer  and  praise  is,  from  its  very  nature, 
full  of  meaning.  He  who  says  Amen  to  the  doxology 
before  us,  must  be  understood  as  giving  the  assent  of 
his  judgment  to  the  propositions,  that  there  is  a  God  ; 
that  he  is  infinitely  wise ;  that  his  wisdom  has  been 
specially  displayed  in  the  provision  made  for  saving 
sianers,  without  the  sacrifice  of  justice,  through  the 
incarnation  and  atonement  of  his  Son,  that  mystery 
of  godliness,  the  disclosure  of  which,  by  the  Spirit, 
through  the  prophets,  in  the  preaching  of  the  gospel, 
is  the  most  transcendent  demonstration  of  God's  wis- 
dom ever  given  to  his  creatures  ;  that  the  being  thus 
proved  to  be  the  only  wise  God  is  deserving,  in  rea- 
son and  in  justice,  of  eternal  praise ;  that  of  this 
honour,  though  exclusively  divine,  Jesus  Christ  is 
infinitely  worthy  to  partake ;  and  that  it  is  only 
through  him,  and  by  virtue  of  his  mediation,  inter- 
cession, and  spiritual  oneness  with  his  people,  that 


ROMANS  16,  27  205 

their  obligation  to  give  gloiy  to  God  can,  in  any  sort 
or  measure,  be  discharged.  All  this  may  be  consid- 
ered as  involved  in  the  doxology,  as  interpreted  by 
the  context  and  comparison  with  others.  Let  no  one 
who  refuses  to  aclaiowledge  and  embrace  all  this  as 
time  dare  to  re-echo  the  apostle's  words  ;  but  whoso- 
ever does  believe  and  hold  these  precious  doctrines, 
let  him  say  Amen. 

This  act,  however,  is  expressive  of  far  more  than 
a  mere  intellectual  assent  to  the  righteousness  and 
reasonableness  of  ascribing  everlasting  glory  to  the 
only  wise  God.  It  implies,  moreover,  an  assent  of 
will,  nay  it  expresses  a  desire  that  what  reason  and  a 
sense  of  right  thus  recognize  as  due  to  God,  should 
be  actually  given  to  him.  This  has  already  been  de- 
scribed as  entering  essentially  into  the  structure  of  a 
scriptural  doxology.  It  is  not  the  dry  statement  of 
an  abstract  truth.  It  is  the  language  of  emotion,  of 
affection,  of  desire,  of  an  earnest,  an  engrossing,  a  su- 
preme desire,  that  God,  to  use  the  prophet's  strong 
expression,  may  not  be  robbed  by  his  ungrateful 
creatures.  It  is  an  actual  rendering  to  God  the  things 
that  are  God's,  by  actually  giving  him  the  praise  that 
is  his  due,  not  by  constraint  or  grudgingly,  not  from 
a  mere  intellectual  conviction,  or  through  stress  of  con- 
science, but  with  hearty  acquiescence,  with  affection- 
ate delight,  with  joy,  with  triumph,  with  a  sympa- 
thetic sense  of  personal  interest,  of  individual  partici- 
pation in  the  glory  thus  ascribed  and  given  to  another, 
not  because  the  giver  counts  himself  as  any  thing  in 
the  comparison,  but  for  a  reason  diametrically  oppo- 
site, because  he  counts  himself  as  nothing,  out  of  God, 


206  SERMONS. 

out  of  Christ,  and  as  being  something  cnly  so  far  aa 
he  is  united  and  attached  to  Him,  so  that  the  more 
God  is  glorified,  the  more  the  humble  worshipper  is 
reallj  exalted,  as  the  drop,  which  by  itself  would  have 
been  lost,  may  rise  to  heaven  in  the  heaving  of  the 
ocean.  This  is  the  secret  of  the  only  exaltation  which 
to  man  is  safe  or  even  possible.  God  resisteth  the 
proud,  and  giveth  grace  to  the  humble  ;  they  humble 
themselves  under  the  mighty  hand  of  God,  that  he 
may  exalt  them  in  due  time.  Kot  only  then  to  those 
who  disbelieve  the  truths  involved,  is  this  doxology 
a  riddle  or  a  profanation,  but  to  those  who  embrace 
the  doctrines  merely  with  the  understanding,  and  with 
no  such  enlargement  of  the  heart,  and  going  out  of 
the  affections  as  the  great  apostle  evidently  felt  in 
writing  it.  Let  all  such  hold  their  peace,  and  let 
only  such  as  can  thus  enter  into  the  full  meaning  of 
his  language  say  Ameti. 

But  there  is  more  than  this  required  to  a  full 
participation  in  the  spirit  of  the  passage.  Not 
only  is  the  mere  admission  of  the  truth  that  God 
is  worthy  to  be  glorified  forever  insufficient,  with- 
out a  sincere  willingness,  or  rather  an  importunate 
desire,  that  he  may  receive  the  glory  which  be- 
longs to  him.  Even  this  is  not  enough.  Such 
a  belief  and  such  a  wish  as  have  been  just  de- 
scribed, either  presuppose  or  lead  to  the  reception 
of  the  great  truth  that  "  the  Lord  has  made  all  things 
for  himself,"  that  his  rational  creatures,  especially,' 
have  been  created  capable  of  serving  and  of  glorify- 
ing him ;  and  for  the  very  purpose  of  so  doing,  that 
they  are  consequently  bound  not  only  to  acknowledge 


ROMANS  16,  27.  207 

his  just  claims,  and  to  desire  that  they  may  be  satis- 
fied, but  to  spend  and  be  spent,  to  do  and  to  suffer, 
to  live  and  to  die,  to  live  and  move  and  have  their 
being  for  this  end,  not  only  passively,  but  actively, 
remembering  it,  hoping  for  it,  longing  for  it,  looking 
towards  it,  hastening  towards  it,  making  every 
thought,  and  word,  and  act,  so  far  as  possible,  con- 
tribute to  it.  "We  who  have  not  yet  reached  the  height 
from  which  such  views  are  possible,  have  reason  to 
lament  that  we  are  still  unprepared  to  give  a  full  as- 
sent to  Paul's  doxology  ;  but  if,  through  God's  grace, 
any  have  obtained,  not  only  passing  glimpses,  but  a 
clear  and  steady  view  of  the  great  end  of  their  exist- 
ence as  revealed  in  Scripture,  and  have  turned  their 
faces  thitherward  for  life,  forever,  with  a  fixed  and 
hearty  resolution  to  forget  what  is  behind,  and  reach 
forth  to  that  which  is  before,  with  all  the  heart 
and  mind  and  soul  and  strength — ^let  all  such '  say 
Amen. 

The  word  fore'cer  I  have  not  supplied.  It  is  in- 
cluded in  the  terms  of  the  doxology ;  and  as  it  is  a 
word  of  vast  and  deep  and  awful  import,  it  becomes 
us  to  consider  it  before  we  undertake  to  say  Amen  to 
the  apostle.  For  by  so  doing,  in  addition  to  all  that 
has  been  said  already,  we  acknowledge  that  God's 
glory  is  not  only  the  great  end  to  which  we  now  look 
forward,  but  an  end  to  which  we  must  look  forward 
through  eternity;  not  only  an  object  which  ought 
now  to  fill,  and  animate,  and  rule  the  soul,  with  all  its 
powers  and  afiections,  but  an  object  which  can  never 
cease  to  do  so.  If  we  are  still  unwilling  thus  to  take 
God  as  the  portion  of  our  souls,  and  to  seek  our  hap- 


208  SERMONS. 

piness  forever  in  his  glory,  our  assent  to  Paui's  dox- 
ology  is  still  imperfect,  if  not  insincere  ;  but  let  him 
who  knows  already  what  it  is  to  have  made  God  his 
all  in  all,  forever,  say  Amen  and  Amen.  And  as 
this  absolute  assent  can  be  produced  in  us  by  no 
strength  or  wisdom  of  our  own,  let  our  hopes  be 
founded  upon  nothing  in  ourselves,  but  on  the  en- 
couragement which  the  apostle's  benediction  and 
doxology  afford  us :  "  The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  be  with  you  all."  "And  to  him  that  is  of 
power  to  stablish  you  according  to  my  gospel  and  the 
preaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  God  only  wise,  be  glory 
through  Jesus  Christ  forever,  Amen." 


XI. 


LctE  14,  lY. — "  Come,  for  all  things  are  now  ready." 

We  have  here,  as  in  many  other  passages  of 
Scripture,  a  most  precious  invitation,  and  a  reason  for 
accepting  it.  An  invitation — "  come ;"  a  reason — 
"  all  things  are  now  ready."  The  first  of  these  re- 
quires no  explanation.  In  the  spiritual  sense  or  ap- 
plication of  the  parable  from  which  the  text  is  taken, 
"  come"  means,  of  course,  come  to  the  gospel  feast, 
to  the  provision  of  God's  bounty,  to  the  fountain,  to 
the  cross,  to  Christ  himself  It  is  equivalent  to  say- 
ing. Be  ye  saved,  and  includes  the  exhortation  to  re- 
pent, believe,  submit  to  the  righteousness  of  God,  and 
accept  of  the  salvation  that  he  offers.  It  is  therefore 
the  same  call  that  is  continually  ringing  in  the  ears 
of  those  who  hear  the  gospel,  and  which  needs  not  so 
much  to  be  explained  as  to  be  enforced.  For  this 
very  purpose,  it  is  added,  because  all  things  are  now 
ready.  To  this  reason  for  yielding  to  the  call  of  mer- 
cy I  invite  your  attention.  "  Come,  for  all  things  are 
now  ready."  In  the  parable,  it  obviously  means  that 
the  precise  time  of  enjoyment  was  now  come,  that 
the  provision  was  complete  and  the  arrangements  per- 
fect.    A  little  earlier  might  have  been  too  early.     A 


210  SERMONS. 

little  later  was  too  late  forever.  Sucn  a  time  there  is 
and  must  be  in  all  human  invitations.  Such  a  time 
there  is  in  every  invitation  of  the  gospel.  But  be- 
tween the  cases  there  is  this  momentous  difference  : 
In  the  one  it  may  be  equally  amiss  to  come  too  early 
or  too  late.  In  the  other  we  need  only  fear  to  come 
too  late.  It  is  impossible  to  come  too  early ;  be- 
cause the  provision  is  already  and  completely  made 
for  those  who  will  receive  it,  and  needs  not  to  be 
constantly  renewed,  as  in  the  other  case.  Oh,  if  our 
eyes  could  be  unsealed,  or  these  surrounding  mists 
dispelled  so  as  no  longer  to  obstruct  our  view  of  the 
divine  compassions,  we  might  behold  the  banquet 
hall  of  mercy  rise  before  us  "  like  an  exhalation," 
with  its  flashing  lights,  its  music,  and  its  odours, — 
making  the  outer  darkness  more  profound  by  con- 
trast, and  the  cold  and  hunger  of  the  gazing  crowd 
more  keen  and  pinching !  Before  such  displays  of 
human  splendour  and  festivity,  the  poor  and  wretched 
often  stand  in  envious  admiration.  For  to  them  that 
threshold  is  impassable.  And  even  those  who  are 
allowed  to  feed  there  because  full  already,  must  await 
the  appointed  moment.  But  how  diiferent  this  feast 
of  mercy.  Those  who  do  not  enter  will  not  hear  the 
call  or  cannot  see  the  bounties  spread  before  them. 
If,  when  their  eyes  and  ears  are  opened,  they  still 
linger,  it  is  only  for  a  moment,  in  the  first  feeling  of 
incredulous  surprise  that  this  provision  can  be  meant 
for  them,  and  that  they  need  no  preparation  or  delay, 
but  may  partake  of  it  at  once.  While  they  stand 
amazed  at  the  sights  and  sounds  so  suddenly  present- 
ed to  their  senses,  as  at  something  quite  beyond  their 


LUKE  14,  17.  211 

reach,  their  hopes,  and  almost  their  desires,  the  doors 
fly  open,  a  fresh  flood  of  light,  new  waves  of  melody, 
new  gales  of  odour,  stream  forth  npon  them,  and  loud 
yet  gentle  voices  cry  to  them — not  merely  to  others — 
but  to  them :  Come  and  see  ;  eat  and  drink,  oh  be- 
loved ;  come,  for  all  things  are  now  ready.  And  from 
age  to  age  the  call  is  still  the  same.  As  one  genera- 
tion sweeps  another  off"  the  stage, — some  heeding, 
some  despising,  some  not  even  hearing  the  benignant 
invitation, — it  is  still  repeated  :  all  things  are  now 
ready.  Yes,  at  whatever  moment  the  poor  sin-sick, 
starved,  exhausted  sinner  first  begins  to  feel  his  want 
and  turns  his  dim  and  haggard  eyes  towards  that 
scene  of  splendour  and  festivity  before  unknown  or 
madly  disregarded — however  untimely  the  appeal 
may  seem — though  the  prayer  be  breathed  at  mid- 
night, in  the  dark — from  the  beggar's  hovel,  the  field 
of  battle,  or  the  dungeon,  or  the  scaflold, — the  re- 
sponse is  still  the  same :  come,  for  all  things  are  now 
ready. 

The  resort  to  this  supply  can  never  be  too  early  ; 
it  should  never  be  too  late.  It  can  never  be  too  early ; 
for  the  soul  is  never  without  consciousness  of  want — 
a  restless  craving  for  enjoyments  better  than  the  best 
it  has  experienced.  It  should  never  be  too  late — as 
it  is,  alas  !  too  late  for  thousands — because  all  things 
are  now  ready  ;  and  when  all  things  are  now  ready, 
and  the  opportunity  afforded  of  securing  them  but 
transient,  it  is  self-destruction  to  refuse  acceptance  ; — • 
it  is  folly,  it  is  madness,  even  to  postpone  it.  Let  us 
theft  consider  the  readiness  of  all  things  as  a  reason 
for  coming  to  Christ  now.     And  as  the  simplest  way 


212  SERMONS. 

ot  doing  this,  let  us  consider  what  it  is  that  hindera 
us  from  coming.  I  speak  not  to  those  who  are  still 
utterly  insensible — unconscious  of  their  danger,  or 
unwilling  to  confess  it — for  with  such  it  is  impossible 
to  reason,  and  they  must  be  left  to  the  fearful  conso- 
lation of  that  solemn  irony :  they  that  are  whole  need 
not  a  physician.  But  to  you  who  own  yourself  a  sin- 
ner, and  in  need  of  mercy,  and  expect  to  find  it  one 
day  in  the  Saviour,  to  you  I  put  the  question — and 
would  pray  you  to  put  it  yourselves : — what  prevents 
your  coming  now  ?  what  invisible  hand  drags  you 
back  when  you  are  almost  on  the  threshold? — holds 
your  eyes  fast  shut  when  you  begin  to  see  light; 
stifles  your  very  cries  for  mercy ;  and  chokes  down 
the  throbbings  of  your  bursting  heart ; — what  is  it  ? 
No  external  force  ;  you  act  freely  in  refusing  to  come. 
What  inward  cause,  then, — why  do  you  not  come  ? 
what  keeps  you  still  away  ?  Alas  !  I  need  not  ask  ; 
for  in  the  way  of  every  sinner  who  knows  what  it  is 
to  think,  there  always  rises  up  one  barrier  which  ef- 
fectually stops  his  course  till  God  removes  it ;  it  is 
guilt — the  paralyzing  and  benumbing  sense  of  guilt. 
The  very  same  thing  that  creates  the  necessity  ot 
coming,  seems  to  render  it  impossible.  God  is  a  holy 
God,  a  just  God,  and  a  Sovereign.  His  law  is  broken  ; 
we  ourselves  have  broken  it:  He  cannot  but  con- 
demn us, — nay,  we  are  condemned  already.  The  con- 
viction of  this  truth  is  like  an  iron  yoke  upon  our 
necks,  and  chains  around  our  limbs ;  we  feel  the  pres- 
sure, and  we  would  be  delivered, — but  we  cannot 
move.  We  cannot  willingly  appear  before  the  pres- 
ence of  our  enemy — our  judge — our  executioner.     As 


LURE  14,  17.  213 

long  as  this  relation  still  subsists,  or  seems  to  do  so, 
we  will  not,  cannot,  dare  not  come,  whatever  may  be 
ready.  Oh,  my  hearers,  is  there  none  among  you  be- 
fore whom  this  conviction  has  shot  up  into  a  massive 
wall  which  you  can  neither  scale,  nor  penetrate,  nor 
go  round, — and  at  the  foot  of  which  you  are  now  ly- 
ing, neither  able  to  go  further,  nor  yet  willing  to  go 
back  ?  Would  to  God  this  might  be  the  experience  of 
some  who  have  not  yet  been  brought  so  far,  for  they 
might  then  expect  deliverance.  All  that  you  need  is 
ready — even  now  ready.  If  you  cannot  look  up,  you 
can  listen.  What  is  that  sound  which  comes  forth 
from  the  darkness  or  the  light  inaccessible  where  God 
resides  ?  Is  it  the  muttering  of  distant  thunder,  or 
the  premonition  of  a  coming  storm  ?  It  is  indeed  a 
voice  like  the  voice  of  thunderings, — sweet  yet  solemn 
to  the  ear — but  it  speaks  of  mercy,  not  of  wrath  ;  it 
is  a  voice  like  the  voice  of  many  waters,  saying: 
Come  and  see !  Look  up  !  Above,  beyond  these 
barriers,  see  the  throne  and  Him  who  sits  upon  it ; 
the  cloud  in  which  He  wraps  himself  is  not  charged 
with  tempest, — it  is  radiant  with  light ;  his  diadem 
is  not  vindictive  lightning,  but  the  peaceful  rainbow. 
He  desireth  not  the  death  of  the  sinner,  but  that  all 
should  turn  and  live.  He  permits,  he  commands,  he 
entreats  you  to  be  saved, — the  strongest  possible  ex- 
pression of  his  willingness.  Oh,  my  hearers,  if  you 
are  deterred  by  a  sense  of  alienation  and  estrange- 
ment from  your  God,  or  by  a  doubt  of  his  benignity, 
his  willingness  to  pardon  and  be  reconciled, — if  this 
is  what  deters  you,  come,  oh  come  without  delay,  for 
all  things  are  now  ready. 


214  SEBMONS. 

But,  perhaps  your  way  is  not  yet  open ;  your  oL  - 
stacles  are  not  yet  all  removed.  Whatever  you  may 
think  of  the  benevolence  of  God,  you  cannot  lose 
sight  of  his  justice.  However  his  compassion  might 
consent,  his  holiness,  his  truth,  his  righteousness, 
still  stop  the  way.  He  cannot  lie.  His  threat- 
enings  must  be  executed.  He  cannot  deny  him- 
self. The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die.  The  law  is 
broken,  and  its  awful  penalty  must  be  discharged. 
Whatever  else  is  ready  matters  not  while  this  vast 
debt  remains  unpaid.  All  these  are  certain  and  ap- 
palling truths.  There  is  no  danger  of  exaggerating 
their  reality  or  fearful  import.  You  can  never  gain 
relief  from  this  discouragement  by  learning  to  exten- 
uate the  claims  of  the  di\-ine  law,  or  the  turpitude  of 
sin,  or  the  necessity  of  punishment,  or  the  tremendous 
nature  of  the  penalty  annexed  to  all  transgression,  or 
your  utter  incapacity  to  evade  it  or  to  heal  the  vast 
breach  of  the  violated  law.  You  may  tamper  as  you 
will  with  your  understanding  and  your  conscience, 
but  the  only  /ruit  of  such  attempts,  when  most  suc- 
cessful, is  delusion  or  despair.  The  dream  of  self-de- 
ception must  be  followed  soon  or  late  by  a  fearful 
waking ;  and  however  often  or  however  long  you  may 
forget  yourself  in  sleep,  the  awful  truth  will  still  rush 
back  upon  your  waking  thoughts,  only  rendered  more 
intolerable  by  the  brief  oblivion  which  preceded.  If 
the  i^ressure  of  pecuniary  debt  can  rob  men  of  their 
sleep,  embitter  their  enjoyments,  mar  their  peace, 
make  life  a  burden,  drive  them  mad,  and  even  arm 
them  with  the  weapon  of  self-murder,  so  that  cowards 
against  others  become  brave  against  themselves,  and 


LUKE  14,  17.  215 

tliey  who  shrink  from  the  suiferings  of  this  life  rashly 
venture  on  the  next — if  these  are  but  familiar  conse- 
quences of  the  agony  jjroduced  by  consciousness  of 
mere  pecuniary  debt  beyond  the  man's  ability  to  pay, 
oh,  what  would  be  the  issue,  if  the  vast  account-books 
between  us  and  God  should  be  completely  opened 
and  made  fully  legible  ?  by  what  arithmetic  could  we 
compute,  or  in  what  terms  express  the  terrible  result  ? 
It  is  impossible ;  and  partly  for  the  reason  that  it  is 
impossible,  we  shut  our  eyes,  and  stop  our  ears,  and 
turn  away  our  thoughts  from  this  confounding  theme  ; 
and  even  when  we  do  attempt  to  scan  it,  and  to  plead 
the  greatness  of  our  debt  as  an  excuse  for  not  accept- 
ing Christ,  it  is  not  because  we  have,  but  because  we 
have  not,  any  adequate  conception  of  that  debt,  which, 
if  we  saw  it  as  it  is,  instead  of  filling  our  mouth  with 
arguments  against  God,  would  strike  us  dumb,  and 
strike  us  blind,  and  strike  us  dead  before  him.  In 
this  direction  you  are  right  in  seeing  no  escape  ;  there 
is  none ;  you  are  right  in  denying  that  this  debt  must 
be  discharged — it  must ;  and  that  you  cannot  pay  it, 
for  you  never,  never  can.  If  you  are  only  partially 
and  superficially  convinced  of  this,  you  will  remain 
wiiere  I  now  leave  you,  and  continue  to  excuse  your- 
self by  pleading  that  your  sins  are  inexcusable.  But 
if  you  are  really  and  thoroughly  persuaded  that  you 
must  and  cannot  pay  this  awful  debt,  the  very  dark- 
ness of  your  self-despair  may  give  you  light  or  serve 
to  make  it  visible  ;  at  first  a  dim  spark, — then  a  faint 
gleam, — then  a  glow — a  flame — a  blaze — and  in  the 
focus  of  that  blaze  you  may  behold, — as  the  ancient 
persecutor  saw  amidst  the  white  heat  of  liis  own  de- 


216  SERMONS. 

voui'ing  furnace,  a  form  like  that  of  the  Son  of  God, 
standing  erect  beside  the  way  which  leads  you  to 
the  tlirone  of  mercy.  You  must  pass  by  him,  or  you 
cannot  reach  the  footstool.  Who  is  he  that  thus 
awaits  you  ?  his  eye  moist  with  pit}',  but  his  features 
pallid,  as  one  risen  from  the  dead.  And  in  his  out- 
stretched hand  the  eye  of  faith  can  discern  something 
shining;  something  precious;  something  priceless; 
not  the  glare  of  gold  or  silver,  or  the  sparkle  of  inval- 
uable gems,  but  something  wet  with  tears  and  stained 
with  blood  ;  the  blood  still  oozing  from  that  stricken 
heart.  It  is  the  purchase  of  your  life ;  it  is  the  ran- 
som of  your  soul ;  it  is  the  price  which  you  could 
never  pay ;  which  men  and  angels  could  not  have 
paid  for  you ;  in  default  of  which  you  had  resigned 
yourself  to  perish.  See,  he  holds  it  out ;  he  presses  it 
upon  3'ou ;  and  the  turning  point  is — can  you  reject 
it?  If  you  can,  oh  let  your  lips  be  sealed  forever 
from  all  mention  of  the  penalty  of  God's  law,  as  deter- 
ring you  from  mercy ;  for,  as  you  plunge  into  the 
gulf  of  self-destruction,  the  last  sound  from  above  that 
reaches  you,  may  be  the  dripping  of  that  blood,  one 
touch  of  which  would  have  sufficed  to  cancel  your 
vast  debt  forever.  Oh,  if  this  alone  is  wanting  to  em- 
bolden your  approach  to  God,  I  say  again,  my  hearer, 
"  come,  for  all  things  are  now  ready." 

But  now,  perhaps,  you  feel  another  hinderance ; 
one  of  which  you  took  but  little  note  before.  Though 
God  be  ready  to  forgive  you  for  the  sake  of  Christ's 
atoning  sacrifice,  you  find  a  hinderance  in  yourself,  in 
your  heart,  in  your  very  dispositions  and  affections. 
Besides  being  guilty,  righteously  condemned,  just- 


LUKE  14,  17.  217 

ly  exposed  to  punishment,  unable  to  atone  for  your 
transgressions  ;  you  are  polluted,  your  yery  nature 
is  corrupt,  averse  from  good,  disposed  to  evil. 
How  can  you  come  into  the  presence  of  a  holy  God  ? 
How  can  you  fail  to  be  an  object  of  abhorrence  to 
him?  How  can  you  love  what  you  detest,  or  find 
your  happiness  in  that  which  is  directly  contradictory 
to  all  your  nature  ?  Here  again  the  fact  alleged  is 
true  and  awful  beyond  your  worst  conceptions.  There 
are  depths, — there  are  abysses  of  defilement,  which 
you  need  not  undertake  to  fathom ;  into  which  you 
cannot  even  look  without  bewilderment  and  sickness 
of  spirit.  If  God  should  lift  the  veil  which  hides 
them,  and  permit  the  light  to  sliine  directly  on  them, 
you  would  be  unable  to  endure  it.  Oh,  look  away 
from  that  heart-rending  spectacle.  Here  is  another 
object  to  contemplate.  Over  against  that  blood- 
stained form  which  profiers  ransom,  what  is  this  ?  A 
gushing  spring,  a  flowing  stream,  a  flood,  a  sea, 
of  purifying  virtue.  Plunge  into  it,  and  you  are 
cleansed  already.  You  come  up  out  of  its  waters 
changed,  and  yet  the  same.  Coercion  is  no  longer 
needed ;  for  your  very  dispositions  and  desires  are  re- 
volutionized. Old  things  are  passed  away  ;  all  things 
are  become  new ;  new  without  aud  new  within  ;  new 
heavens  and  a  new  earth ;  a  clean  heart  and  a  right 
spirit ;  this  is  indeed  a  new  creation,  a  new  crea- 
ture, a  new  birth,  born  again,  born  from  above, 
born  of  God  ;  the  washing  of  regeneration,  the  renew- 
ing of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Be  not  deterred  then  by  the 
sense  of  what  you  are,  any  more  than  by  the  sense  of 
what  you  cannot  do,  or  what  you  have  already  done. 

VOL.  I. — 10 


218  SERMCiNS. 

The  provision  of  God's  mercy  includes  this  as  well  as 
every  other  want.  A  new  heart  is  as  much  his  gift 
as  expiation  and  forgiveness.  Come,  then,  and  re- 
ceive what  he  vouchsafes  to  offer.  Come  without  re- 
serve, without  delay,  for  all  things  are  now  ready. 

But  I  hear  you  say  you  cannot  come  alone,  you 
cannot  struggle  by  yourself,  you  cannot  brave  alone 
the  thunderings  and  lightnings  of  Mount  Sinai,  you 
cannot  stand  with  Moses  on  the  smoking  and  the 
quaking  summit,  you  must  mingle  with  the  multi- 
tude below.  You  are  not  even  willing  to  be  saved 
alone.  Having  followed  a  multitude  so  long  to  do 
evil,  you  still  feel  the  need  of  communion  and  exam- 
ple, of  mutual  incitement  and  restraint.  And  you 
shall  have  it.  You  shall  have  it  in  perfection  if  you 
will  but  come.  For  ye  are  come  unto  Mount  Zion, 
and  unto  the  city  of  the  living  God,  to  the  general  as- 
sembly and  church  of  tlie  first-born,  which  are  written 
in  heaven.  The  Church  of  Christ  stands  open  to  re- 
ceive you,  to  protect  you,  and  to  nourish  you.  Her 
institutions,  her  examples,  her  worship,  her  ordi- 
nances, her  communion,  all,  all  are  ready  for  you. 
This  is  a  want  for  which  the  grace  that  rescues  you 
has  specially  provided.  You  are  not  asked  to  be 
saved  alone,  tliough  that  were  surely  better  than  to 
perish.  You  may  bring  as  many  with  you  as  you 
will,  and  you  will  find  many  entered  in  before  you. 
When  we  bid  you  come,  you  are  invited  to  a  feast,  of 
which  many,  thanks  be  to  God,  are  after  all  partakers, 
and  though  many  that  are  bidden  make  excuse  or 
even  venture  to  make  light  of  it,  the  giver  of  the  ban- 
quet shall  be  still  supplied  with  guests  ;  for  wliile  tlie 


LUKE  14,  17.  219 

broad  way  that  leadeth  to  destructicn  remains  crowded 
with  infatuated  victims,  another  concourse  is  seen 
streaming  from  the  bje-ways  and  the  hedges  to  the 
table  of  the  Lord,  where  they  shall  sit  down,  clothed 
and  in  their  right  minds,  washed  and  beautified,  en- 
nobled and  refined,  while  many  who  appeared  to  be 
hereditary  children  of  the  kingdom,  are  excluded  or 
exclude  themselves  from  all  i)articipation  in  the  ban- 
quet. Of  the  company  thus  gathered  and  trans- 
formed you  are  to  form  a  part.  The  doors  stand  open, 
open  to  receive  you,  and  yet  there  is  room.  If  all 
obstructions  have  now  vanished  from  without  and 
from  within,  if  atonement,  and  forgiveness,  and  re- 
new'al  are  accessible,  and  if  the  Church  is  ready  to 
receive  you  into  its  communion  of  saints,  what  remain- 
ing pretext  for  delay  can  be  imagined  ?  Come,  for 
all  things  are  now  ready. 

Do  yon  still  object  that  these  are  only  temporary 
institutions  ?  that  they  do  not  reach  as  far  as  your  ne- 
cessities and  fears  ?  Do  you  ask.  When  these  fail, 
whither  shall  I  go,  and  who  shall  then  receive  me 
unto  everlasting  habitations  ?  I  still  reply,  but  in  a 
higher  sense,  that  ye  are  come  unto  Mount  Zion,  to 
the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  to  an  innumerable  company 
of  angels,  and  to  the  spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect. 
Heaven  is  ready  to  receive  you,  and  in  that  assurance 
all  is  comprehended.  Whatever  local  and  material 
associations  you  may  have  with  heaven,  they  are  but 
the  veil,  the  hull,  the  casket.  We  use  heaven  to  de- 
note a  state,  in  which  place  other  circumstances  may 
be  comprehended,  but  oh  how  much  more !  All 
goodness  and  all  blessedness.     All  wrong  and  suffer- 


220  SERMONS. 

ing  shut  out  forever.  Let  memory  and  imagination 
do  their  worst  in  multiplying  images  of  evil,  and  in 
calling  up  before  the  mind  the  forms  and  the  occasion 
of  distress ;  then  add  that  all  these  will  be  wanting. 
Give  mdulgence  to  your  boldest  flights  and  wildest 
dreams  of  happiness,  apart  from  sin,  then  add  that 
all,  and  infinitely  more  than  all  you  can  imagine,  will 
be  yours  and  yours  forever,  without  the  fear  or  possi- 
bility of  change,  or  loss,  or  diminution.  Every  pure 
wish  gratified,  all  lofty  aspirations  more  than  realized, 
and  what  is  past  or  present  still  as  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  what  is  yet  to  come.  All  attempts  to 
heighten  such  an  object,  only  lower  it,  and  leave  our 
apprehensions  of  it  less  defined  and  satisfactory  than 
at  first.  But  if  this  inefi'able  condition,  this  negation 
of  all  evil,  this  perpetual  fruition  of  the  highest  good 
awaits  you,  stands  prepared  for  you ;  then  surely  it 
may  well  be  said  to  you,  Come,  oh  come,  for  all  things 
are  now  ready.  Expiation,  pardon,  renovation,  the 
grace  of  the  Father,  the  merit  of  the  Son,  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Spirit,  the  Church  on  earth,  and  the 
Church  in  heaven,  safety  in  life,  peace  in  death,  and 
glory  through  eternity ;  a  good  hope  here,  and  an  in- 
efi'able reality  hereafter;  all  things,  all  things,  are 
now  ready. 

"Will  you  come  ?  If  not,  you  must  turn  back,  you 
must  retrace  your  steps,  and  take  another  view  of  this 
momentous  invitation.  Higher  we  cannot  rise  in  the 
conception  or  the  presentation  of  inducements.  If 
you  must  have  others,  they  must  be  sought  in  a  lower 
region.  Let  us  then  descend  from  this  exalted  point 
of  observation  whence  you  have  surveyed  the  glorious 


LUKE  14,  17.  221 

things  now  ready  to  receive  you,  and  surveyed  tliem, 
it  may  be,  witliout  emotion  or  effect ;  let  us  descend, 
and  from  a  different  position,  take  a  momentarv  view 
of  certain  other  preparations  no  less  real  in  them- 
selves, and  no  less  everlasting  in  their  issues.  I  have 
already  mentioned  one  important  difference  between 
the  ideal  feast  and  others,  namely,  that  at  these  we 
may  arrive  too  early,  while  at  that,  the  only  fear  is, 
we  may  be  too  late.  Another  striking  difference  is 
this,  that  the  refusal  of  an  earthly  feast  involves  at 
most  the  loss  of  some  enjoyment,  or  at  most  the  aliena- 
tion of  the  giver.  But  in  those  parables  of  Christ, 
where  this  is  the  predominant  image,  the  refusal  of 
the  feast  is  represented  as  a  crime,  and  they  wlio 
would  not  partake  of  the  supper  are  cast  into  outer 
darkness,  where  is  weeping,  and  wailing,  and  gnash- 
ine:  of  teeth.  The  reason  is  obvious.  The  feast  is  a 
figure  for  salvation  or  deliverance  from  ruin.  To  re- 
fuse it,  therefore,  is  to  choose  destruction.  This  must 
])e  taken  into  view,  if  we  would  estimate  the  motives 
here  presented.  All  things  are  ready,  and  in  all  is 
included  more  perhaps  than  you  imagine.  There  are 
other  things  ready  besides  pardon,  expiation,  renova- 
tion, the  communion  of  saints,  and  the  joys  of  heaven. 
I  shall  mention  only  two. 

Such  is  the  brevity  of  life,  and  such  the  transitory 
nature  of  the  offer  of  salvation,  that  even  the  youngest 
who  decides  this  question,  may  be  said  to  decide  it  in 
the  prospect  of  death,  and  on  the  confines  of  eternity. 
However  numerous  and  long  the  years  that  stretch  be- 
fore you  may  appear  when  viewed  in  comparison  with 
this  world's  trifling  interests,  they  vanish  into  nothing 


222  SERMONS. 

wlien  confronted  witli  eternity.  I  say  then  to  you,  who 
even  now  are  balancing  the  reasons  for  consenting  and 
refusing  to  obey  tho  exhortation  of  the  text,  that  you  are 
really  so  balancing  with  death  immediately  before  yon, 
that  among  the  things  now  ready  and  awaiting  your  de- 
cision, this  is  one.  Of  some  this  is  doubtless  true, 
even  according  to  your  customary  method  of  comput- 
ing time.  An  eye  endowed  with  supernatural  per- 
ception, might  detect  among  those  youthful  forms 
and  beautiful  countenances,  some  for  whom  the  grave, 
almost  without  a  figure,  may  be  said  to  be  already 
open.  But  of  all,  of  all  without  exception,  for  the 
reason  before  given,  the  same  thing  may  be  afiirmed, 
because  the  space  which  intervenes  between  the  fatal 
resolution,  to  reject  this  gracious  invitation  either 
finally,  or  till  a  more  convenient  season,  and  the  ac- 
tual close  of  your  probation,  will  hereafter  seem,  and 
ought  now  to  seem,  so  short  and  evanescent,  and  con- 
temptible, that  he  who  now  rejects  Christ  may  be 
fairly  represented  as  rejecting  him  with  one  foot  in 
the  grave,  or  with  the  body  half  submerged  in  the 
cold  waters  of  the  river  of  death.  Whoever  you  may 
be,  then,  whetlier  young  or  old,  in  sickness  or  in 
liealth,  I  tell  you  plainly,  that  among  the  things 
"  now  ready,"  and  awaiting  your  decision,  is  the 
grave,  the  grave ;  the  cold,  damp  earth,  is  ready  to 
receive  you.  If  you  impatiently  repel  this  suggestion, 
as  untimely  or  irrelevant,  this  only  shows  how  unj)re- 
pared  you  are  to  meet  the  fearful  spectre  that  it  raises. 
Even  true  believers  may  be  all  their  lifetime  subject 
to  bondage,  through  fear  of  death,  even  in  this  re- 
stricted sense ;  how  much  more  natural  and  rational 


LUKE  14,  17.  223 

is  sucli  a  fear  in  you  who  are  unwilling  to  obey  tlie 
invitations  of  the  gospel.  Death  is  the  Icing  of  terrors, 
and  however  we  may  hate  his  presence,  it  is  better  to 
encounter  it,  when  such  encounter  may  be  possibly  of 
use  to  us,  than  when  all  hope  of  victory  or  rescue  is 
extinguished.  v 

Look  then,  my  hearer,  with  as  steady  and  as  bold 
an  eye  as  your  philosophy  can  furnish,  look  into 
those  shadowy  recesses  which  even  poetry  describes 
to  you  as  overhung  by  the  funeral  cypress,  tenanted 
only  by  the  dead,  and  vocal  only  with  the  dirge, 
the  voice  of  weeping,  and  the  solemn  noises  which 
accompany  the  rites  of  burial.  Look  at  that  silent 
shadow  or  the  earth  which  it  enshrouds,  as  your 
appointed  place,  your  long  home,  and  at  that  narrow 
chasm  as  the  very  bed  in  which  your  limbs  are  to  re- 
pose perhaps  for  ages.  Claim  it  as  your  own,  assert 
your  right  to  it,  and  give  it  place  among  the  things 
now  ready  for  you  and  awaiting  your  decision.  Do 
you  say  that  all  this  is  as  true  of  one  as  of  another, 
and  that  die  you  must,  whether  you  accept  or  refuse 
the  invitation  of  the  text  ?  This  is  indeed  theoreti- 
cally true,  but  it  is  practically  false.  Go  tell  the 
prisoner,  as  he  enters  his  dark  dungeon  for  the  last 
night  of  repose  before  he  mounts  the  scaffold,  that  his 
cell  is  no  whit  darker,  or  his  couch  harder,  or  his 
chains  heavier  than  those  of  his  next  neighbour,  whoso 
captivity  expires  on  the  morrow.  Go  read  the  coun- 
tenances of  the  two  men  as  they  enter  the  same  com- 
fortless abode  of  crime,  each  knowing  that  the  morrow 
is  to  break  his  chains.  To  both,  the  filth,  and  dark- 
ness, and  confinement  may  be  now  as  nothing,  but 


224  SERMONS. 

liow  diiferent  the  reason.  To  tlic  one  tlie  filtli  seems 
splendour,  and  the  darkness  light,  and  the  confinement 
freedom,  in  the  rapturous  anticipation  of  deliverance, 
and  as  he  falls  asleep,  he  hugs  the  very  chains  that 
bind  him,  in  the  certainty  that  he  shall  never  lie  down 
chained  'again ;  while  to  the  other,  all  these  same 
things  are  absorbed  and  annOiilated  in  the  prospect 
of  a  doom  compared  with  which  captivity  itself  seems 
perfect  freedom.  Go  persuade  yourself  that  when 
those  two  men  enter  their  dark  dungeons  and  lie 
down  to  sleep,  they  are  alike  in  their  condition  ;  then 
come  back,  and  we  will  hear  you  say  death  comes 
alike  to  all,  and  deny  that  the  grave's  being  ready  to 
receiA^e  you  is  a  reason  which  should  govern  your  de- 
cision. Death  comes  alike  to  all ;  but  know,  O  vain 
man,  the  sting  of  death  is  sin,  and  the  strength  of  sin 
is  the  law.  It  is  appointed  unto  all  men  once  to  die, 
and  after  that  the  judgment ;  but  oh  how  different 
the  case  of  those  who  can  abide  that  judgment,  and 
of  those  who  cannot ;  of  those  who  die  but  once,  and 
of  those  who  die  self-doomed  and  self-predestined  to 
the  second  death.  It  is  appointed  unto  all  men  once 
to  die,  but  some  die  twice,  some  die  again,  some  die 
forever,  and  if  this  is  your  doom,  you  may  well  shrink 
back  and  shudder  at  the  grave  before  you,  as  the  ves- 
tibule, the  entrance  to  another.  For,  after  all,  it  is 
not  the  terrestrial  sepulchre  considered  in  itself  that  I 
would  set  before  you,  any  further  than  as  shuttmg 
the  door  forever  on  all  choice.  I  look  not  merely  into 
it,  but  through  and  beyond  it,  into  that  mysterious 
world  which  seems  to  yawn  beneath  it.  There  with 
the  eye  of  fancy  or  of  faith,  you  may  see  a  deeper, 


LUKE  14,  17.  225 

darker,  ghastlier  grave,  ready  for  your  soul,  and  for 
your  soul  and  body  when  again  united.  You  may 
turn  from  this  as  a  diseased  imagination,  but  imagi- 
nation as  it  is,  the  day  is  coming  when  to  some  it  will 
seem  poor  and  weak  indeed  contrasted  with  the  dread 
reality.  The  grave  is  ready  both  for  body  and  for 
soul.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  look  into  it,  or  listen  to  the 
wailings  that  come  up  from  it,  or  breathe  its  sulphur- 
ous vapours.  I  only  ask  you  to  believe,  and  to  re- 
member that  the  grave  and  the  abyss  are  as  truly 
ready  if  you  will  not  come,  as  pardon,  and  redemj)- 
tion,  and  sanctification,  and  the  church,  and  heaven, 
are  ready  if  you  will  come.  On  both  sides,  therefore, 
all  things  are  ready.  The  world  of  bliss  and  the 
world  of  woe  spread  out  their  motives  in  your  sight. 
If  you  will  die,  death  is  easy,  for  the  grave  is  ready 
both  for  soul  and  body  ;  it  is  hollowed  for  you  both 
in  time  and  in  eternity.  The  earth,  to  which  you 
must  return,  is  open,  and  the  narrow  house  already 
yawning  to  receive  you,  while  beneath — far  off  in 
yonder  shadowy  world — a  funeral  pile  begins  to  send 
up  its  thick  smoke,  and  to  project  its  lurid  flames  into 
the  air.  On  that  pile  there  is  room  enough  for  you, 
beneath  it,  fire  enough  for  your  destruction.  Tophet 
is  ordained  of  old,  he  hath  made  it  deep  and  large, 
the  pile  thereof  is  fire  and  much  wood ;  the  breath  of 
the  Lord,  like  a  stream  of  brimstone,  doth  kindle  it. 
These  are  strong  figures,  but  if  such  be  the  figures, 
what  must  be  the  reality  ?  "Whatever  it  be,  know 
that  it  is  ready  for  you  if  you  will  not  come,  and  if 
you  choose  death  rather  than  life.  Are  you  willing 
to  live  ?     Life  is  no  less' attainable.     Your  guilt,  your 

VOL.  I. — 10* 


226  SERMONS. 

weakness,  your  corruption,  the  justice,  truth,  and 
holiness  of  God,  are  all  against  you  where  you  stand. 
But  come,  and  all  things  that  you  need  are  ready  for 
you.  Come,  oh  come,  and  expiation,  pardon,  renova- 
tion, the  church  on  earth,  and  the  church  in  heaven  ; 
all  things  are  ready ^  all  things  are  yours,  whether  Paul, 
or  ApoUos,  or  Cephas,  or  the  world,  or  life,  or  death, 
or  things  present,  or  things  to  come,  all  are  yours,  and 
ye  are  Christ's,  and  Christ  is  God's. 


XII. 

Proverbs  22,  2. — The  rich  and  poor  meet  together ;  the  Lord  is 
the  maker  of  them  all. 

This  is  a  proverb,  and  must  be  explained  accord- 
ing to  the  principles  and  usages  of  proverbial  lan- 
gliage.  An  essential  characteristic  of  this  language 
is  its  condensation,  and  the  pregnancy  of  its  expres- 
sions, which  often  imply  more  than  the  same  words 
would  in  continuous  composition,  wliere  there  is  not 
the  same  effort  to  concentrate  much  thought  in  a  few 
words.  This  peculiarity  is  common,  however,  to  the 
popular  or  practical  proverb  and  the  scientific  apho- 
rism. The  difference  between  them  is,  that  while  the 
latter  affects  abstract  and  generic  terms,  the  former 
shuns  them,  and  delights  to  clothe  its  lessons  of  wisdom 
in  the  dialect  of  common  life,  from  which  its  substance 
is  in  fact  derived — the  genuine  proverb  being  a  sum- 
mary expression  of  the  result  of  long  experience.  The 
same  extent  and  fulness  of  meaning,  which  is  given 
to  the  philosophical  maxim  by  the  use  of  comprehen- 
sive terms,  is  no  less  certainly  secured  in  the  case  of 
the  popular  maxim  by  a  means  directly  opposite,  viz., 
the  exhibition  of  particular  examples  to  represent 
whole  classes.     The  specific  terms  employed  in  this 


228  SERMONS. 

way  are  sometimes  figurative,  and  CTeii  symbolical ; 
but  ill  a  multitude  of  cases,  tliey  are  to  be  literally 
understood,  with  due  regard,  however,  to  tlieir  repre- 
sentative design  as  specimens  or  samples. 

Of  this  kind  of  expression,  we  liave  two  instances 
in  the  case  before  us,  both  clauses  of  the  verse  being 
highly  specific  in  their  strict  immediate  import,  yet 
both  generic  in  the  whole  sense  which  they  were  in- 
tended to  convey.  "  Eich  "  and  "  poor  "  are  terms 
properly  descriptive  of  a  single  and  familiar  differ- 
ence of  external  condition.  Tet  here,  as  in  common 
parlance,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  are  put  for 
social  inequalities  in  general.  And  this  interpreta- 
tion is  the  more  admissible,  because  the  distinction 
which  the  words  immediately  denote  is  not  only  one 
of  the  most  universal  and  most  palpable,  but  also  one 
which,  to  a  great  extent,  determines  all  the  rest. 
Knowledge  and  ignorance,  grossness  and  refinement, 
power  and  weakness,  are,  as  a  general  fact,  dependent 
upon  wealth  or  poverty ;  i.  e.  upon  the  want  or  the 
possession  of  the  comforts  and  necessities  of  life  with- 
out the  necessity  of  constant  and  engrossing  labour 
to  obtain  them. 

It  is  true  that  the  advantage  of  refinement  and 
of  knowledge  may  be  often  found  upon  the  side  of 
poverty.  It  is  also  true,  not  only  in  the  case  of  in- 
dividual exceptions  but  as  a  general  fact,  that  they 
who  become  suddenly  i^ossessed  of  wealth,  or  who 
acquire  it  slowly  by  their  own  exertions,  may  be  sig- 
nally destitute  of  that  elevation  and  improvement 
which  is  often  found  accompanying  scanty  means  and 
humble  station.     But  these  are  only  apparent  excej)- 


PROVERBS  22,  2.  229 

tions  to  a  general  rule,  which  they  really  illustrate 
and  confirm.  In  all  such  cases,  wealth  and  poverty 
have  not  had  time  to  operate  the  change  which  they 
naturally  tend  to  produce,  and  what  appears  to  be 
concomitant  of  either,  is  in  fact  the  fruit  of  an  oppo- 
site condition  which  vicissitude  has  not  yet  succeeded 
in  destroying.  The  vulgarity  and  ignorance  of  some 
who  have  recently  become  rich,  are  not  the  eifects  of 
their  new  condition,  but  the  exuviae  of  their  old  one  ; 
and  the  oj)posite  qualities  of  some  who  are  struggling 
for  subsistence,  bear  witness  to  the  previous  posses- 
sion of  advantages  now  lost.  And  even  in  the  case 
of  those  who  have  obtained  an  education  and  expe- 
rienced its  refining  influence,  without  any  such  yicis- 
situde  of  fortune,  it  is  plain  that  this  could  only  be 
made  possible  by  something,  whether  it  be  j)ersonal 
exertion  or  the  aid  of  others,  which  exempted  them 
so  far  and  so  long  from  the  usual  disadvantages  of 
poverty,  as  to  put  them  in  possession  of  advantages 
naturally  belonging  to  an  ojDposite  condition.  There 
is  nothing  arbitrary  or  caiDricious,  therefore,  in  the 
usage  both  of  common  parlance  and  proverbial  dic- 
tion, which  puts  "  vich  "  and  "  poor,"  or  "  poverty 
and  wealth,"  for  all  the  inequalities  of  social  con- 
dition. 

Another  example  of  the  same  thing  is  presented 
in  the  other  clause,  which,  in  its  strictest  sense, 
appears  to  relate  only  to  the  fact  of  creation,  or  the 
character  of  God  as  the  creator  of  all  men  without 
exception.  But  the  analogy  of  the  first  clause,  and 
the  general  usage  of  proverbial  language,  fully  justify 
us  in  supposing  that  this  one  relation  between  God 


230  SERMONS. 

and  man  is  put  for  all  the  rest,  the  rather  as  in  this 
case  the  related  things  are  really  inseparable,  and 
not  merely  similar,  as  in  the  other.  The  various 
distinctions  among  men,  as  we  have  seen,  are  not 
necessarily  or  invariably  coincident.  Riches  and 
knowledge,  poverty  and  rudeness,  do  not  always  go 
together.  But  the  being  who  created  us  must  of 
necessity  be  also  our  preserver,  our  sovereign,  our 
legislator,  our  judge,  and,  if  we  are  redeemed,  our 
Saviour.  The  possession  of  creative  power  implies 
the  rest.  To  say  that  "  the  Lord  is  the  maker  of  them 
all,"  is  therefore  equivalent  to  saying  that  "  they 
have  one  God,"  or  sustain  a  common  relation  to  him, 
with  all  the  fulness  and  variety  of  meaning,  which 
the  clearness  of  the  gospel  revelation  now  enables  us 
to  put  upon  these  otherwise  indefinite  expressions. 

The  affirmation  of  the  first  clause,  that  the  class- 
es there  described  "  meet  together,"  may  be  best  ex- 
plained by  reference  to  another  characteristic  feature 
of  proverbial  language ;  namely,  its  antithetic  form. 
Besides  the  parallel  construction  so  familiar  to  the 
Hebrew  writers  generally,  there  is  a  pointed  oppo- 
sition, both  of  thoughts  and  words,  particularly  fre- 
quent in  the  Book  of  Proverbs.  Of  this  usage  we 
have  also  more  than  one  example  in  the  case  before 
us.  Besides  the  obvious  antithesis  between  the  "  rich  " 
and  "  poor,"  there  are  two  others  not  less  real,  because 
residing  rather  in  the  thought  than  the  expression. 
In  the  first  place,  there  is  an  implied  comparison  or 
contrast  between  human  and  Divine,  or  temporal  and 
eternal  relations ;  between  those  which  men  sustain 
to  one  another,  and  those  which  they  sustain  to  God. 


PROVERBS  22,  2.  231 

In  the  first  point  of  view,  tliey  are  described  as  rich 
and  poor,  but  in  the  second,  as  the  creatures  of  one 
maker.  Under  one  of  these  aspects,  there  is  variety, 
under  the  other  sameness.  As  members  of  human 
society,  men  are  unequal ;  as  creatures  of  God,  they 
are  alike.  This,  though  really  a  mere  variation  of 
the  one  already  stated,  may  with  critical  precision^ 
be  regarded  as  a  third  antithesis ;  viz.,  that  between 
the  inequality  of  men  in  one  respect,  and  their  equal- 
ity in  another. 

This  view  of  the  structure  of  the  sentence,  will 
assist  us  in  determining  the  sense  of  the  expression, 
that  "  the  rich  and  poor  Tneet  together^''  by  showing 
that  it  does  not  mean,  as  some  suppose,  that  both  are 
mingled  in  society,  that  they  oppose  or  encounter  one 
another,  or  as  others  understand  it,  they  ought  to  have 
more  intercourse,  for  neither  of  these  perfects  the 
antithesis  ;  but  rather  that  they  are  alike,  that  with 
all  their  differences  there  is  still  something  common 
to  both,  that  with  all  their  alienation  and  remoteness 
as  to  some  points,  there  is  one,  after  all,  in  which  they 
"  meet  together." 

But  what  is  this  common  ground,  this  point  of 
contact  and  agreement  ?  IN^ot  the  bare  fact  of  a  com- 
mon origin,  for  in  this  way  all  things  may  be  equal- 
ized, and  therefore  the  assertion  of  equality  would  be 
unmeaning.  I^ot  the  fact  that  God  has  made  men  to 
be  absolutely  equal,  for  in  this  sense  the  assertion, 
although  not  unmeaning,  would  be  false,  and  proved 
so  both  by  reason  and  experience.  We  know  that 
men  are  made  extremely  unlike  in  their  caj^acities 
and  susceptibilities,  we  know  still  more  certainly  that 


232  SERMONS.  i 

tlieir  condition  is  diversified  by  providence,  beyond  | 

all  variations  for  whicli  they  are  lield  responsible ;  and 
we  have  reason  to  believe  that  there  will  be  as  great 
a  difference  in  heaven  and  in  hell  as  npon  earth,  not, 
indeed,  with  respect  to  essential  moral  qualities,  but 
as  to  the  degree  in  which  the  same  essential  qualities 
will  be  possessed,  and  the  amoimt  of  suffering  and  en- 
joyment by  which  they  will  be  punished  or  rewarded. 
Tlie  point  of  contact  and  assimilation,  then,  is  not  an 
absolute  identity  of  character  or  sameness  of  condi- 
tion, but  participation  in  a  certain  good  common  to 
both,  and  independent  of  external  qualities.  And  as 
these  latter  are  commonly  regarded,  at  least  by  one 
part  of  mankind,  as  evils,  and  are  recognized  as  such 
by  the  word  of  God  itself,  the  substance  of  the  whole 
when  stripped  of  its  proverbial  form,  may  be  thus 
stated :  that  the  true  corrective  of  all  social  inequali- 
ties, so  far  as  they  are  evil,  must  be  furnished,  not  by 
human  institutions  and  arrangements,  but  derived 
from  a  higher  and  an  independent  source.  In  other 
words,  the  only  practicable  efficacious  remedy  for 
social  e^'ils  of  the  kind  in  question,  is  and  must  be,  a 
religious  one,  i.  e.,  one  founded  not  in  mere  pruden- 
tial changes  of  man's  mutual  relations,  but  in  their 
common  relation  to  their  common  God,  whether  con- 
sidered as  their  master  and  preserver,  as  their  sover 
eign  and  their  judge,  or  as  their  SaAdour  and  Ee- 
deemer. 

In  further  prosecution  of  the  subject,  it  may  not 
be  unprofitable  to  consider  how  and  why  the  religion 
of  the  Bible  is  adapted  to  exert  this  influence ;  and 
that  inquiry,  in  its  turn,  will  be  facihtatcd  by  a  brief 


I 


PROVERBS  22,  2.  233 

enumeration  of  some  other  means,  to  wliicli  men  have 
confidently  looked,  and  are  still  looking,  for  the  prac- 
tical solution  of  the  same  great  problem.  These  may, 
with  reference  to  our  present  purpose,  be  reduced  to 
three.  The  iirst  is  the  idea  of  obliterating  social  in- 
equalities by  a  coercive  distribution  of  all  property. 
This  method  is  condemned  by  its  violent  injustice,  by 
its  doing  evil  that  good  may  come.  It  is  condemned 
by  the  unworthiness  and  meanness  of  its  aims,  by 
its  assuming  as  the  most  essential  element  of  human 
happiness,  the  very  thing  Avhich  may  most  easily  be 
dispensed  with,  if  the  other  conditions  of  well-being 
are  fulfilled. 

It  is  further  condemned  by  the  hypocrisy  of  its 
professions,  as  betrayed  in  every  case  where  there  has 
been  an  opportunity  of  trial,  by  the  tendency  then 
manifested,  not  to  extirpate  social  inequalities, 
but  simply  to  reverse  them ;  not  to  substitute  univer- 
sal competence  and  comfort  for  the  actual  extremes  of 
poverty  and  wealth,  but  by  revolutionary  and  revenge- 
ful process,  to  make  the  poor  rich  by  making  the  rich 
poor.  And  even  if  it  were  exempt  from  all  these 
fatal  errors  and  defects,  it  would  still  be  condemned, 
as  a  practical  expedient  for  removing  evils  actually 
felt,  by  the  proved  impossibility  of  carrying  it  into 
execution  without  sacrificing  the  very  ends  which  it 
engages  to  accomplish.  No  municipal  contrivances  or 
constitutional  provisions  can  repeal  or  thwart  the 
providential  law,  by  which  variety  of  outward  condi- 
tion no  less  than  of  character,  is  recognized  not  only 
as  an  incidental  evil,  but  as  a  necessary  means  to  the 
attainment  of  the  divine  purpose,  as  with  respect  to 


234:  SERMONS. 

man's  condition  in  the  present  life,  or  at  least  in  the 
present  state  of  things. 

The  remarkable  provisions  of  the  law  of  Moses,  for 
the  relief  and  sustentation  of  the  poor,  are  accompa- 
nied by  the  no  less  remarkable  declaration  that  the 
poor  shall  not  cease  out  of  the  land.  If  this  providen- 
tial arrangement  was  intended  for  the  moral  disci- 
pline of  God's  ancient  people,  it  is  hard  to  perceive 
why  it  should  be  discontinued  now,  when  every  reason 
for  it  still  exists  in  full  force  in  the  human  heart,  and 
in  the  structure  of  society  ;  and  Avhen  we  see,  around 
us,  most  conclusive  evidence  that  neither  Christianity, 
nor  civilization,  nor  political  contrivance  has  succeed- 
ed in  abolishing  the  old  distinction  upon  which  the 
Mosaic  institutions  rest.  In  what  sense  the  commu- 
nity of  goods  prevailing  in  the  apostolic  church  is  to 
be  understood,  and  how  far  in  the  sense  which  is 
often  put  upon  it,  it  affords  a  type  of  the  future  con- 
dition of  society  in  this  world,  when  the  power  of  in- 
justice and  of  selfishness  shall  yield  to  that  of  equity 
and  kindness,  as  the  governing  motives  in  the  mass 
of  men,  may  be  still  regarded  as  unsettled  questions. 
But  judging  the  futm-e  by  the  past,  and  by  the  proba- 
ble design  for  which  the  world  still  stands,  we  have 
certainly  strong  reason  to  regard  it  as  a  prophecy  still 
valid,  that  the  poor  shall  not  cease  out  of  the  land. 

Another  remedy,  less  violent,  irrational,  and 
chimerical,  but  still  inadequate,  is  that  which  aims  at 
the  removal  of  the  evil,  by  securing  an  equality  of 
civil  rights,  in  spite  of  personal  and  social  disad- 
vantages. So  far  as  this  means  has  the  negative  effect 
of  hindering  oppression,  and  delivering  the  weak  from 


PROVERBS  22,  2.  235 

the  encroacliments  of  tlie  strong,  it  is  a  priceless  bless- 
ing and  a  noble  contribution  to  the  sum  of  human 
happiness.  But  when  it  is  considered  as  a  positive 
means  of  rendering  men  actually  equal,  and  correct- 
ing the  effects  of  providential  inequalities,  it  is  as 
worthless  as  the  other.  Tlie  poor  man's  right  to  vote, 
or  in  any  other  way  to  control  the  power  under  which 
he  lives,  on  equal  terms  with  his  rich  neighbour,  may 
be  preventive  of  a  thousand  other  evils,  but  it  no 
more  suffices  of  itself  to  put  him  on  a  level  with 
his  neighbour,  as  to  knowledge,  or  refinement,  or  in- 
telligence, or  character,  than  an  agrarian  division  of 
all  property.  It  may  be  said  indeed,  and  said  with 
truth,  that  this  political  equality  permits  the  poor 
man  to  aspire  to  the  possession  of  advantages  from 
which  he  would  be  utterly  shut  out  if  living  under  an 
arbitrary  or  despotic  system. 

But  here  again  the  advantage  is  not  positive  but 
negative,  consisting  in  the  removal  of  obstructions 
and  impediments,  but  not  of  itself,  and  necessarily, 
affording  either  strength  or  stimulus,  to  positive  im- 
provement. The  difference  is  like  that  between  a 
starving  prisoner  and  one  who  starves  at  liberty  for 
want  of  work,  or  want  of  strength,  or  want  of  inclina- 
tion to  employ  it.  In  the  absence  of  these  personal 
disqualifications,  freedom  from  all  restraint  is  certain- 
ly a  vast  advantage,  but  of  what  use  is  it  when  these 
other  difficulties  all  exist  ?  of  no  more  than  the  nega- 
tive security  afforded  by  political  equality,  when 
those  enjoying  it  are  endlessly  distinguished  from  each 
other  in  capacity,  improvement,  character,  and  dis- 
position.    They  are  safe  from  the  oppression  of  their 


236  SERMONS. 

neiglibours,  but  it  may  be  only  to   oppress   them- 
selves. 

Far  superior  to  either  of  these  schemes  is  that 
which  seeks  to  remedy  the  evil  b}'  means  of  intellec- 
tual increase  of  knowledge  and  refinement  of  taste. 
Unlike  the  first,  its  aim  is  nobler,  good  in  itself  and 
wholesome  in  its  influence,  and  this  end  it  seeks  to 
reach  without  injustice,  without  violence.  Unlike 
the  second,  its  eifect,  when  realized,  is  not  merely 
negative,  but  positive.  It  not  only  makes  improve- 
ment possible,  but  actually  produces  it.  The  objection 
to  this  intellectual  remedy,  when  aj)plied  alone,  is 
that  its  influence,  though  positive  and  real,  is  not 
necessarily  or  wholly  good.  It  strengthens,  but  the 
strength  which  it  imparts  may  be  used  for  evil  as 
well  as  good.  It  gives  a  capacity  for  higher  enjoy- 
ments than  those  of  sense,  but  it  may  create  the  desire 
without  affording  any  thing  to  feed  it ;  it  may  render 
lower  objects  distasteful,  ■without  really  exchanging 
them  for  higher.  Mere  cultivation  of  the  under- 
standing, taste,  and  sensibilities,  may  be  carried  so  far 
as  entirely  to  disqualify  the  subject  for  his  actual  con- 
dition without  opening  before  him  any  other.  If  the 
existence  of  the  mass  of  men  were  limited  to  this  life, 
such  refinement  would  be  still  more  undesirable,  be- 
cause it  would  unfit  them  for  the  only  world  in  which 
they  are  to  live.  It  would  be  like  the  laborious  and 
expensive  education  of  a  man  for  professional  or  lite- 
rary labour,  who  is  doomed  for  life  to  the  drudgery  of 
mechanical  employment.  The  same  expense  and  in- 
tellectual exertion  would  be  nothing  if  it  were  pre- 
paratory to  a  corresponding  period  and  field  of  labom-. 


PROVERBS  22,  2.  237 

out  extreme  intellectual  refinement  is  not  only  useless 
as  a  preparation  for  hard  labour,  but  positively  hurt- 
ful, by  directly  tending  to  unfit  the  person  for  the 
sphere  in  which  he  is  compelled  to  move.  !N"ow  in- 
struction, such  as  social  reformers  commonly  rely 
upon  to  revolutionize  society,  restricts  its  views  and 
those  of  its  disciples  to  the  present  life,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  directly  tends  to  make  its  actual  duties 
and  enjoyments  more  or  less  distasteful.  So  far  then 
as  it  operates  at  all  on  social  inequalities,  it  aggravates 
instead  of  healing  them,  by  tending  to  make  all,  as 
far  as  possible,  alike  in  taste  and  capacity,  but  leaving 
them  as  unlike  as  ever  with  respect  to  their  actual 
condition  and  enjoyment.  If  some  men  after  all 
must  be  rich,  and  others  poor,  some  laborious  and 
some  idle,  is  it  not  better  upon  mere  utilitarian  and 
worldly  principles,  that  their  habits  and  their  tastes 
should  correspond  to  these  diversities,  than  that  all 
should  desire  and  relish  the  same  objects,  wliile  the 
objects  are  attainable  by  only  some  ? 

Even  this  imperfect  view  of  the  principal  attempts 
which  have  been  made  to  remedy  the  real  or  imagi- 
nary evils  of  external  inequality,  may  aid  us  in  our 
subsequent  inquiry,  how  religion,  or  the  Christian 
system,  undertakes  to  accomplish  the  same  end,  or 
what  advantages  experience  has  shown  it  to  possess 
over  every  supplementary  or  rival  system.  This, 
as  being  the  immediate  subject  of  consideration, 
must  of  course  be  exhibited  in  more  detail  than 
either  of  the  methods  which  have  been  described 
already. 

Tlie  first  particular  to  which  I  would  invito  your 


238  SERMONS. 

attention,  is  tlie  fact  that  Christianity  distinctly 
recognizes  the  existence  and  necessity  of  some  provi- 
dential inequalities  in  the  external  situation  of  man- 
kind. It  is  characteristic  of  the  Bible  that  it  does 
not  address  itself  to  an  ideal  class  of  readers,  but 
has  reference  throughout  to  the  world  as  it  is,  and 
to  the  actual  condition  of  mankind.  This  is  the  more 
remarkable  because  its  standard  of  moral  perfection  is 
so  high,  and  its  demands  upon  the  race  so  large.  It 
neither  keeps  out  of  view  the  corruption  of  our  nature 
on  the  one  hand,  nor  consigns  us  to  it  without  hope 
upon  the  other.  It  neither  exalts  earth  to  heaven,  nor 
debases  heaven  to  earth.  It  places  us  in  sight  of  the 
one,  but  in  tlie  midst  of  the  other.  In  short,  the  Bible 
is  as  far  as  possible  from  that  cheap  and  expeditious 
mode  of  remedying  social  evils  which  begins  by  deny- 
ing their  existence.  The  picture  which  it  gives  of 
human  character  and-  condition,  is  one  drawn  from 
the  life  with  terrible  exactness,  and  may  be  recognized 
in  any  country  and  in  any  age.  The  evils  which  it 
represents  as  calling  for  a  remedy,  are  not  ideal,  but 
precisely  those  which  all  men  feel  and  know  in  their 
experience  to  be  real.  This  creates  a  strong  presump- 
tion that  the  remedies  themselves  will  be  adapted  to 
their  end,  and  that  a  book  which  so  faithfully  de- 
scribes a  thing  to  be  done,  may  be  safely  relied  on 
when  it  tells  us  how  to  do  it.  Let  it  also  be  observed, 
that  the  Bible  differs  from  human  systems  of  reform, 
by  recognizing  not  only  the  existence  of  these  inequali- 
ties, but  their  injurious  effects,  so  far  as  they  are  real ; 
yet  far  from  rej)resenting  them  as  irremediable,  it  pro- 
vides, as  we  shall  see,  the  only  practicable  and  efiec- 


PEOVERBS  22,  2.  239 

tive  remedy,  consisting  not  in  any  one  specific  nos- 
trum, but  in  a  series  and  combination  of  corrective 
influences,  eacli  of  wliicli  gives  power  and  eflect  to  all 
the  rest,  and  none  of  wliicli  can  tlierefore  either  be 
dispensed  with  or  relied  upon  exclusively. 

The  first  of  these  remedial  effects,  is  the  direct 
mitigation  of  the  evils  in  question  by  the  change 
wrought  in  the  tempers  and  affections  of  the  parties, 
so  far  as  they  are  brought  under  the  influence  of  gos- 
pel truth.  Li  this  way  the  tendency  of  wealth  to 
foster  pride,  and  of  privation  to  breed  discontent,  is 
counteracted  and  controlled,  and  thus  the  chasm 
which  divides  the  two  conditions,  meets  with  a 
double  diminution.  The  hardships  of  the  poor  are 
greatly  aggravated  in  their  apprehension,  by  the  lux- 
urious abuse  of  wealth  whiclx.  they  are  forced  to  wit- 
ness, or  too  ready  to  imagine  ;  while  on  the  other  hand, 
the  proud  contempt  of  the  rich  and  prosperous  is  em- 
bittered by  the  real  or  imputed  thanklessness  and  in- 
subordination of  the  humbler  classes.  So  far  is  a  mere 
equality  of  civil  rights  from  rectifying  these  unhap])}/ 
mutual  relations,  that  it  rather  seems  to  render  them  still 
more  unfriendly,  as  appears  from  the  unquestionable 
fact  that  under  our  free  institutions,  Avherever  these 
distinctions  have  a  well-defined  existence,  and  are 
brought  into  collision,  it  is  with  a  deeper  feeling  of 
inveterate  hostility  than  in  those  countries  where  there 
is  actual  experience  of  oppression,  but  less  intelligence 
or  less  freedom  of  utterance  on  the  part  of  those  who 
suffer  wrong.  Tlie  consciousness  of  independence  and 
of  equal  rights,  instead  of  soothing  the  repugnance  to 
distinctions  of  another  kind,  beyond  the  reach   of 


240  SERMONS. 

constitutions  and  the  ballot-box,  necessarily  exasper- 
ates it  where  it  is  already  felt,  and  may  perhaps  tend 
to  produce  it  where  it  is  not. 

Now  the  gospel  operates  upon  the  same  materialiS 
in  a  very  different  manner  and  with  very  different  re- 
sults ;  instead  of  reconciling  men  to  one  kind  of  infe- 
riority or  disadvantage  by  abolishing  another  which 
has  no  connection  with  it,  Christianity  applies  its 
alterative  remedies  directly  to  the  part  diseased,  sub- 
dues the  pride  from  which  revenge  and  discontent 
invariably  flow,  creates  a  general  and  habitual  dispo- 
sition to  forbearance,  and  a  modest  estimate  of  self. 
How  ?  not  by  philosophical  abstractions,  but  by  con- 
vincing men  of  sin  and  prompting  them  to  accept  of  a 
gratuitous  salvation.  However  imperfect  these  effects 
may  be,  they  are  produced  and  just  so  far  as  they  are 
realized  in  any  man's  experience^  just  so  far  do  they 
tend  to  heal  the  breaches  in  society  produced  by  prov- 
idential inequalities.  He  who  heartily  believes  him- 
self to  be  a  miserable  sinner  justly  condemned,  and 
entirely  dependent  upon  sovereign  mercy  for  sal- 
vation, must  and  will,  in  some  direct  proportion  to 
the  strength  of  these  convictions,  lower  his  demands 
upon  his  fellow-men,  and  rise  in  his  demands  upon 
himself.  If  rich,  he  will,  to  some  extent,  grow  liber- 
al ;  if  poor,  contented  ;  and  if  either,  thankful. 

For  another  thing  observable  in  this  whole  pro- 
cess of  correcting  social  evils  by  the  positive  influence 
of  true  religion,  not  of  orthodoxy  merely,  but  of  en- 
lightened spiritual  piety,  is  this  :  that  while  it  recog- 
nizes these  invidious  distinctions  as  existmg,  and  in 
some  degree  inseparable  from  the  mixed  condition  of 


PKOVERBS  22,  2.  242. 

society  in  tliis  world,  it  attaches  to  the  various  degrees 
of  wealth,  refinement,  knowledge,  influence,  and  lei- 
sure, their  corresponding  measures  of  resj)onsibilitj. 
The  gospel,  when  it  operates  upon  the  rich  man's 
heart,  does  not  force  him  to  impoverish  himself,  but 
it  constrains  him  to  discharge  the  obligations  by 
which  wealth  is  accompanied.  It  does  not  necessa- 
rily make  the  rich  man  poor,  but  so  far  as  it  operates 
at  all,  it  always  makes  him  do  the  duties  of  a  rich  man 
just  as  in  the  other  case,  it  often  leaves  the  poor  man 
poor,  or  makes  him  poorer,  but  it  never  fails  to  make 
him  feel  that  God  requires  of  poverty  contentment, 
and  submission,  and  frugality,  as  truly  as  he  calls  the 
rich  to  Christian  liberality.  And  so  of  ignorance  and 
knowledge,  public  station  and  obscurity,  and  all  the 
other  contrasts  and  antitheses  of  our  social  condition. 

It  is  not,  however,  by  mere  stress  of  conscience,  or 
a  painful  sense  of  obligation,  much  less  by  a  slavish 
dread  of  punishment,  that  true  religion  exercises  this 
corrective  influence.  Such  a  conviction  by  itself 
would  only  make  the  evil  fester  in  concealment,  while 
the  conscience  thus  enlightened,  makes  the  way  of 
duty  plain,  the  renewed  afi'ections  move  spontaneous- 
ly along  it,  so  that  the  rich  and  poor,  the  strong  and 
weak,  not  only  own  it  to  be  right  that  they  should 
severally  bear  and  forbear,  and  sustain  each  other's 
burdens,  but  are  inclined  to  do  it  by  as  natural  a 
movement  as  they  were  once  inclined  to  reciprocal 
envy  and  contempt. 

This  is  the  first  step  in  the  grand  remedial  pro- 
cess, which  the  Christian  religion  is  even  now  ap23ly- 
ing  to  the  evils  of  social  inequality.     It  makes  each 

VOL.  I. — 11 


242  SERMONS. 

party,  at  least  to  some  extent,  eontenied  witli  hia 
actual  condition,  aware  of  its  peculiar  obligations, 
and  spontaneously  disposed  to  discharge  tliem,  while 
by  thus  removing  or  diminishing  on  each  side  what 
is  chiefly  provocative  of  envy  or  contempt  upon  the 
other,  it  not  only  makes  each  better  in  itself,  but 
draws  them  nearer  to  each  other.  Now  all  this — and 
it  is  much — might  be  experienced,  though  all  the 
original  dUBference  in  point  of  wealth,  or  knowledge, 
or  refinement,  still  subsisted  in  full  force ;  because  the 
salutary  change  is  in  the  moral  sensibilities,  disposing 
them  to  overlook  disparities  of  culture  and  condition, 
and  does  not  consist  in  the  removal  or  material 
diminution  of  the  disparities  themselves. 

But  in  the  next  place  Christianity  contributes  to 
this  great  change  in  the  very  way  which  I  have  just 
excluded  from  the  first  stage  of  the  process.  That  is 
to  say,  after  making  men  willing  to  regard  with 
charity  and  even  complacency  those  far  above  or 
below  themselves  upon  the  scale  of  intellectual  im- 
provement and  of  social  cultivation,  the  gospel 
brings  them  nearer  to  each  other  upon  that  scale  too — 
first  disposes  them  to  mutual  benevolence  while  far 
apart,  and  then  diminishes  the  interval  between  them, 
not  by  equalizing  property  or  bringing  all  parts  of 
society  to  one  dead  level,  but  by  giving  to  each 
rank  or  class,  or  whatever  else  you  please  to  call  it, 
a  high  degree  of  relative  refinement,  i.  e.,  of  refine- 
ment suited  to  the  actual  position,  and  conducive  to 
the  right  discharge  of  its  peculiar  duties.  Here  is  a 
grand  mistake  of  every  other  system  for  the  elevation 
of  what  must  be  called,  even  among  us,  the  lower 


PROVERBS  22,  2.  243 

classes  of  society,  that  they  aim  at  an  ahsolute  and 
uniform  amount  of  cultivation,  having  reference  to 
some  arbitrary  standard,  whereas  Christianity  gives 
each  class  what  is  best  for  it  and  most  conducive  to 
its  harmony  with  every  other.  The  kind  of  cultiva- 
tion which  some  would  bestow  upon  the  poor,  could 
only  serve  to  render  them  ridiculous,  while  that  which 
Christianity  really  imparts  to  them,  tends,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  dignify  and  elevate.  However  it  may  be 
explained,  the  fact  is  certain  that  the  gospel  has  in 
some  parts  of  the  world,  given  even  to  the  peasantry 
a  species  of  refinement  which  no  other  means  has  been 
able  to  efi'ect  without  it,  even  under  the  most  favour- 
able circumstances.  Compare  what  the  arts  and  the 
artistical  attractions  of  the  Romish  faith  have  done  for 
Italy — with  what  an  austere  Calvinism  has  done  both 
for  the  Celtic  and  the  Saxon  race  of  Scotland,  While 
in  the  one  case  the  eye  and  the  ear  may  have  been 
trained,  and  picturesque  attitudes  and  costumes  ren- 
dered almost  universal  even  among  beggars,  in  the 
other  case  a  poor  laborious  population  has  been 
raised  to  a  pitch  of  intelligence  and  real  cultivation, 
which  the  best  advantages  of  education  often  fail  to 
produce  among  ourselves. 

This  is  the  other  part  of  the  great  creative  and 
healing  process  by  which  the  gospel  is  continually 
bringing  the  discordant  elements  of  society  together, 
and  correcting  the  evils  which  would  otherwise  result 
from  providential  inequalities.  By  a  process  of  moral 
elevation,  men  are  first  taught  to  surmount  the  disad- 
vantages arising  from  this  cause,  and  then  by  one  of 
intellectual  elevation,  the  operation  of  the  cause  itself, 


244  SERMONS. 

is  circumscribed  and  weakened,  tiJ  in  some  cases  it 
appears  to  be  destroyed,  and  in  all  cases  the  result  of 
this  twofold  influence  exerted  on  the  mind  and  heart 
directly  by  religion,  is  a  manifest  reduction  of  the 
difference  between  the  various  classes  of  society 
arising  from  diversity  of  outward  circumstances  and 
position.  That  diversity  may  still  continue  and  be 
formally  as  great  as  ever,  but  the  evils  flowing  from 
it  will  be  neutralized  exactly  in  proportion  to  the 
action  of  the  cause  described. 

If,  in  what  has  now  been  said,  too  much  should 
seem  to  be  ascribed  to  religion  in  the  abstract  or  the 
general,  without  regard  to  precise  fonns  and  systems 
of  belief,  this  has  arisen  from  two  causes — one  of 
which  is,  that  even  the  most  diluted  form  of  Christi- 
anity on  one  hand,  or  its  most  corrupted  form  upon 
the  other,  will  be  found  more  efficacious  for  the  cure 
of  social  maladies,  and  more  especially  the  healing 
of  these  alienations  which  we  are  considering,  than 
any  system  of  means  which  philosophers  or  j^oliti- 
cians  can  devise  without  involving  the  assistance 
of  religion.  The  other  reason  is,  that  general  terms 
have  been  used  for  brevity,  where  more  specific  ones 
would  really  have  made  the  case  still  stronger.  For 
it  is  not  more  certain  or  susceptible  of  proof,  that 
religion  is  more  potent  in  this  matter  than  any  other 
principle,  and  Christianity  more  efficacious  than  all 
other  systems  of  religion  put  together,  than  it  is  that 
among  the  various  fonns  of  Christianity  itself.  Tlie 
highest  influence  of  this  kind  has  been  ever  exerted 
by  the  doctrines  of  grace,  or  what  we  are  accustomed 
to  distinguish  by  the  name  of  evangc-ical  religion. 


PROVERBS  22,  2.  245 

This  is  no  vain  boast  in  behalf  of  wliat  we  hold  to 
be  the  present  form  of  Christianity.  Tlie  fact  itself  is 
a  matter  of  history,  and  its  causes  easily  explained. 
If  a  graduated  scale  could  be  constructed,  showing 
the  degrees  in  which  the  national  intelligence  and 
character  have  been  visibly  affected  by  the  direct  in- 
fluence of  religion  on  the  masses  of  the  people,  and 
the  evils  of  social  inequality  thereby  corrected,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  while  the  weakest  influence  of 
this  kind  would  be  found  to  have  proceeded  from  the 
Romish  and  oriental  forms  of  Christianity,  or  from 
the  most  diluted  systems  of  Socinian  or  deistical 
neology,  where  these  have  been  allowed  to  act,  not 
merely  on  the  educated  classes,  or  on  very  small 
communities,  but  on  a  large  extent  of  population,  the 
highest  measures  of  the  same  efi'ect  must  be  ascribed 
to  what  its  enemies  delight  to  brand  as  Calvinism, 
even  where  it  has  been  mingled  and  diluted,  as  in 
Holland  or  l^ew  England,  and  the  highest  of  all, 
precisely  where  its  purity  and  vigour  have  been  least 
abated,  as  in  Scotland. 

If  a  direct  comparison  is  wanted,  let  it  be  furnish- 
ed by  the  Scotch  and  Irish  peasantrj' — the  two  most 
signal  instances  in  history  of  whole  nations  brought 
almost  entirely  under  the  control  of  certain  systems 
of  belief  and  certain  spiritual  leaders,  yet,  how  dif- 
ferent the  moral,  intellectual,  and  social  fruits  of  these 
contiguous  experiments !  The  very  evils  which  in 
one  case  have  almost  disappeared  from  the  surfece,  if 
not  from  the  interior  of  society,  are  even  now  menac- 
ing the  other  with  terriflc  revolution.  I  have  said 
too  that  the  cause  of  this  notorious  difference  is  easily 


246  SERMONS. 

assigned,  I  mean  a  cause  residing  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  several  systems.  It  is  the  combination  of  the 
doctrines  of  individual  responsibility  and  private 
judgment  with  those  of  human  corruption  and  gra- 
tuitous salvation,  that  has  produced  the  grand  elixir 
to  which  Scotland  owes  her  healthful  social  state ;  and 
as  the  lower  degrees  of  the  same  influence  are  found 
to  correspond  to  less  degrees  of  purity  and  reform  in 
the  maintenance  of  these  same  doctrines,  it  may  safe- 
ly be  affirmed,  as  a  lesson  even  of  experience,  that 
this  system  of  belief  is  demonstrably  the  best  adapted 
to  exert  a  purifying,  healing  influence  on  human  so- 
ciety, and  thereby  to  correct  the  evils  flowing  from 
the  unavoidable  diversities  and  outward  situation  and 
degrees  of  intellectual  improvement,  or,  in  other 
words,  that  it  afibrds  the  safest  and  the  best  ground 
upon  which  "  the  rich  and  poor"  may  "  meet  together" 
and  acknowledge  that  "  the  Lord  is  the  maker  of 
them  all." 

If  these  views  be  correct,  they  throw  a  welcome 
light  on  a  subject  of  great  practical  importance — I 
mean  the  necessity  of  popular  religious  education, 
not  only  as  a  means  of  personal  improvement  and  sal- 
vation, but  also  as  the  grand  corrective  and  perhaps  the 
sovereign  cure  of  the  disorders  which  now  prey  upon 
society  and  "  eat  as  doth  a  canker."  It  is  not  enough 
to  believe  that  religious  knowledge  is  a  good  thing 
for  religious  purposes,  and  that  it  even  may  supply 
the  want  of  other  knowledge  and  of  general  culti- 
vation, where  these  last  are  unattainable.  "We  are 
bound  to  believe,  because  experience  leaves  no  room 
to  doubt,  that  religious  education  has  a  social  and  a 


PROVEKBS  22,  2.  ■   247 

secular  as  well  as  an  exclusively  religious  use ;  and 
that  it  is  not  merely  a  good  thing,  but  the  good  thing, 
the  very  thing,  the  only  thing,  by  which  the  masses 
of  mankind  can  be  extensively  and  healthfully  af- 
fected, so  that  if,  with  reference  to  them,  we  were  al- 
lowed to  choose  between  a  general  intellectual  refine- 
ment and  complete  religious  training,  considered 
simply  as  two  rival  means  of  social  improvement  and 
conciliation,  we  should  still  be  bound  to  choose  the 
latter,  and  to  send  it  rolling  as  a  mighty  flood  through- 
out  the  earth  "  for  the  healing  of  the  nations." 

The  other  point  which  these  considerations  serve 
to  set  in  a  clear  light,  is  the  importance  of  the  minis- 
terial office,  in  its  relation  to  society  at  large,  as  the 
administrator  of  this  reconciling,  elevating,  purify- 
ing system.  It  has  been  said  of  the  English  clergy, 
that  they  belong  to  all  ranks  in  society,  enjoying 
free  access  to  each,  without  thereby  forfeiting  the 
confidence  of  any.  Of  ministers,  even  among  us, 
the  same  thing  may  be  said,  or  rather,  that  they 
properly  belong  to  no  class,  because  their  authority 
and  influence  are  not  dependent  upon  human  usages 
or  institutions,  but  on  God's  appointment  and  God's 
blessing.  Let  those  who  seek  the  office  bear  in  mind, 
then,  that,  in  more  than  one  sense,  they  are  called  or 
will  be  called  to  dispense  "  the  word  of  reconcilia- 
tion," first,  by  reconciling  men  to  God,  and  then  by 
reconciling  man  to  man — healing  the  breaches  and 
divisions  of  society,  and  rendering  the  evils  which 
they  generate,  as  few  and  harmless  as  they  can.  This 
noble  end  is  not  to  be  promoted  by  a  partial  and  ex- 
clusive self-devotion,  either  to  the  higher  or  the  low- 


248    ^  SERMONS. 

er  ranks,  by  making  common  cause,  as  some  do, 
either  with  the  rich  against  the  poor  or  with  the  poor 
against  the  rich,  but  by  endeavouring  to  bring  the 
truth  and  power  of  God  to  bear  upon  the  adverse 
parties  with  a  moderating,  elevating,  and  uniting 
influence,  and  thus  preparing  all,  by  mutual  forbear- 
ance and  assimilation,  for  that  better  country  and 
those  better  times  when  these  invidious  distinctions 
shall  no  longer  be  remembered,  but  "  the  rich  and 
poor"  shall  finally  and  forever  meet  together  in  the 
presence  of  that  God  who  "  is  the  maker  of  them  all." 


XIII. 

Romans  11,  22. — Behold  therefore  the  goodness  and  severity  of 
God;  on  them  which  fell,  severity;  but  toward  thee,  goodness,  if 
thou  continue  in  his  goodness  ;  otherwise,  thou  also  shalt  be  cut  off. 

There  is  sometliiiig  sublime  in  the  constancy  of 
nature.  "We  derive  thence  our  sti'ongest  impressions 
of  stability  and  uniformity.  This  association  has  be- 
come proverbial  in  many  languages.  It  is  also  re- 
cognized in  Scripture,  and  in  the  dialect  of  common 
life.  But  there  is  another  side  to  this  grand  picture. 
The  changes  of  nature  are  sublime  too.  Some  of  these 
are  rare  and  even  recondite.  Such  as  occultations 
and  eclipses.  Some  are  familiar  to  men  in  certain 
situations.  Such  arc  the  ebb  and  flow  of  tides  ;  still 
more  the  changes  in  the  surface  of  the  ocean.  When 
calm,  it  seems  immovable ;  when  roused,  incapable 
of  rest.  Thus  it  furnishes  the  most  vivid  types  of 
life  and  death.  He  who  sees  it  in  both  states,  might 
almost  question  the  identity  of  the  object.  But  these 
sights  multitudes  have  never  seen.  There  are  other 
instances  of  change  more  universal.  Who  has  not 
seen  the  cloudless  sky  ?  Who  has  not  seen  it  over- 
cast ?  What  contrast  can  be  more  complete  than  that 
between  a  bright  and  lowering  day  ?     What  more  un- 

VOL.  I, — 11* 


250  SERMONS. 

like  tlian  tlieir  effect  upon  the  senses,  the  iiiiagination, 
and  the  nervous  sensibih'ties  ?  But  this  is  an  occa- 
sional and  fitful  alternation,  which  cannot  be  com- 
puted or  foreseen,  at  least  in  our  climate.  There  are 
others,  and  these  the  most  familiar,  which  are  abso- 
lutely uniform,  and  from  which  our  ideas  of  regular- 
ity and  constancy  are  chiefly  borrowed.  Such  are 
the  vicissitudes  of  day  and  night,  and  the  stated  revo- 
lution of  the  seasons. 

As  to  all  these,  our  earliest  impressions  may  be 
those  of  different  objects.  To  the  child  perhaps,  the 
dark  and  clear  sky  may  have  no  identity  ;  the  smooth 
and  rough  sea  may  be  different  oceans  ;  the  world  by 
day,  and  the  world  by  night,  distinct  parts  of  the 
universe.  Then  when  we  learn  to  speculate  and  rea- 
son, we  may  verge  towards  the  opposite  extreme. 
We  may  suspect  ourselves  of  some  illusion,  and  con- 
clude not  only  that  the  object  is  the  same,  but  that 
its  changes  are  imaginary.  The  truth  lies  between 
these  two  extremes. 

All  this  may  be  used  to  illustrate  spiritual  things. 
"Whoever  seriously  contemplates  God,  is  startled  by 
aj^parent  inconsistencies.  While  we  gaze  at  the  clear 
sky  it  is  overcast ;  or  at  the  serene  ocean  it  begins  to 
lash  itself ;  or  at  the  sunset,  it  merges  into  twilight, 
and  that  into  darkness.  We  fasten  upon  some  view 
of  the  divine  nature  and  become  absorbed  in  it,  till  it 
is  intercepted  by  another  in  a  kind  of  occultation  or 
eclipse.  The  first  effect  may  be  like  that  of  natural 
changes  on  the  child :  we  refuse  to  identify  the  ob- 
ject. This  is  perhaps  the  source  of  polytheism.  Un- 
able to   reconcile  the  various  phases  of  the  divine 


ROMANS  11,  22.  251 

nature,  men  regard  them  as  appearances  of  different 
objects.  Philosophical  abstraction  goes  to  the  oppo- 
site extreme,  and  identifies  the  attributes  as  well  as 
the  subject  in  which  they  inhere.  Thus  we  are  told 
that  wrath  and  love,  justice  and  mercy,  are  the  same 
thing.  But  from  this,  common  sense  and  natural 
feeling  alike  revolt.  We  rest  at  last  in  the  conclusion 
that  what  we  behold,  are  consistent  because  co-exist- 
ent manifestations  of  one  and  the  same  substance. 

"When  Israel  first  saw  the  cloudy  pillar  growing 
luminous  at  night,  he  might  have  thought  it  was 
another ;  when  convinced  of  his  mistake,  he  might 
have  suspected  some  illusion  of  his  senses ;  but  a  little 
experience  must  have  satisfied  him  that  both  these 
conclusions  were  erroneous ;  that  the  Lord  his  God 
was  one  Lord,  and  that  this  one  Lord  did  go  before 
him  in  a  pillar  of  cloud  by  day,  and  a  pillar  of  fire  by 
night.  Especially  must  they  have  been  convinced  of 
this  in  that  night,  long  to  be  remembered,  when  the 
Lord  looked  out  in  the  morning-watch  uj^on  the  host 
of  the  Egyptians,  through  the  pillar  of  fire  and  of 
cloud,  and  troubled  the  host  of  the  Egyptians  (Exodus 
14,  24) ;  when  the  angel  of  the  Lord  which  went  be- 
fore the  camp  of  Israel,  removed  and  went  behind 
them,  and  the  pillar  of  cloud  went  from  before  their 
face  and  stood  behind  them,  and  came  between  the 
camp  of  the  Egyptians  and  the  camp  of  Israel,  and 
was  a  cloud  of  darkness  to  them,  and  gave  light  by 
night  to  these.  Some — however  they  may  speculate 
at  ordinary  times — may  be  brought  into  circumstances 
where  it  is  equally  impossible  to  doubt,  that  tlic  wrath 
of  God  is  something  very  different  from  his  love,  and 


252  SERMONS. 

yet  that  the  justice  which  we  dread,  an(i  the  mercy 
we  invoke,  are  co-existent  and  harmonious  characters 
of  one  and  the  same  God,  "  glorious  m  holiness,  fear 
ful  in  praises,  doing  wonders."     (Exodus  15,  11.) 

Tliis  is  still  more  striking  when  historically  viewed 
in  the  actual  exercise  of  those  great  attributes  which 
seemed  at  hrst  to  be  in  conflict.  To  one  such  ex- 
ample Paul  has  reference  in  the  text.  The  Jews  had 
been  chosen  from  among  the  nations,  and  made  the 
depository  of  an  exclusive  revelation,  not  forever  but 
for  a  time ;  not  for  their  own  sakes,  but  for  that  of 
men  in  general.  But  as  a  race  they  proved  unfaithful  to 
their  trust.  Tlie  honour  which  belonged  to  God,  they 
arrogated  to  themselves.  Tlie  salvation  given  to  the 
world,  they  desired  and  hoped  to  monopolize.  Hence 
they  were  cut  off  from  the  church  and  deprived  of 
their  national  pre-eminence,  while  the  despised  Gen- 
tiles, whom  they  looked  upon  as  hopelessly  rejected 
took  their  place.  This  the  apostle  finely  embodies  in 
the  figure  of  an  olive  tree  deprived  of  its  own  branch- 
es, while  those  of  a  wild  olive  tree  are  grafted  in. 
In  reference  to  this  stupendous  change,  he  exhorts 
the  favoured  Gentiles  both  to  thankfulness  and  fear. 
"  Behold  the  goodness  and  severity  of  God,  on  them 
&c.  ; "  plainly  implying  that  still  further  change  was 
possible,  and  that  they  who  had  so  strangely  ex- 
changed places  might  again  be  restored  to  their  origi- 
nal position,  and  so  give  occasion  to  a  new  applica- 
tion of  the  same  solemn  words,  "  Behold  therefore  the 
goodness  and  severity  of  God." 

In  fact,  this  formula  admits  of  an  extensive  appli- 
cation to  the  history  of  God's  dispensations  towa,rds 


ROMANS  11,  22.  253 

his  rational  and  moral  creatures,  and  it  is  in  this  wide 
view  of  it  tliat  I  have  selected  it  as  the  subject  of  dis- 
course. We  may  even  go  back  to  the  age  before  the 
world  began,  and  view  the  relation  of  Jews  and  Gen- 
tiles as  a  mere  type  of  that  between  men  and  fallen 
angels.  It  is  a  fearful  truth  of  which  we  have  mere 
glimpses  in  the  Bible, that  a  portion  of  those  unhappy 
spirits  who  surrounded  the  Divine  throne  in  the  high- 
est heavens,  fell  by  their  own  sin  to  the  lowest  hell, 
and  that  the  same  God  whose  goodness  crowned  their 
first  estate  with  glory,  stamped  the  last  with  the  in- 
delible impress  of  his  wrath.  As  his  goodness  had 
been  boundless,  so  his  justice  was  inflexible.  What 
a  lesson  to  those  who  kept  their  first  estate ;  how 
plainly  does  this  dispensation  say  to  them,  "  Behold 
therefore  the  goodness  and  severity  of  God." 

But  the  same  contrast  soon  presents  itself  again. 
Man  is  created,  made  a  little  lower  than  the  angels, 
in  the  image  of  God,  with  dominion  over  the  inferior 
creation,  holy  and  happy,  yet  capable  of  falling. 
Wliat  a  spectacle  to  angels  both  in  heaven  and  hell. 
What  an  object  to  the  malignant  ambition  of  the 
latter  to  destroy  man  too  ;  thus  dishonouring  God, 
and  extending  the  reign  of  sin  and  death :  they  are 
allowed  access  to  the  new  creature,  in  the  paradise 
where  danger  seemed  unknown  and  sin  impossible ; 
yet  God  had  warned  them  by  a  prohibition  of  the 
possibility  of  evil.  That  possibility  is  too  soon  re- 
alized. Seduced  by  one  already  fallen,  man  falls  too. 
It  might  have  been  imagined  that  a  divine  fondness 
for  this  new  creation  would  have  stayed  the  exercise 
of  justice.      Higher  intelligences  may  be  conceived 


254r  SERMONS. 

as  waiting  in  suspense  for  tlie  decision  of  this  qnes  ■ 
tion  ;  Iialf-hoping  that  the  skj  "would  still  remain  se- 
rene, the  ocean  of  Divine  love  still  at  rest,  the  garden 
of  Eden  in  the  bloom  of  a  perpetual  spring.  But 
see,  no  sooner  is  the  sin  committed,  than  the  spot- 
less purity  of  God  is  vindicated  ;  the  heavens  become 
black,  and  seem  to  meet  the  ocean  as  it  rises  in  its 
wrath,  and  mingles  its  tempestuous  murmurs  with 
the  thunderings  from  above  while  every  flower  in 
Paradise  seems  blighted  in  a  moment ;  all  its  verdure 
withers  and  a  dreary  winter  overspreads  the  earth. 
The  change  is  fearful,  but  it  teaches  us  a  glorious 
truth,  that  God  is  holy,  just,  and  true  ;  that  he  is  not 
mocked,  and  that  he  cannot  deny  himself.  To  the 
spirits  yet  unfallcn,  this  new  demonstration  seems  to 
say  again,  "  Behold  therefore  the  goodness  and  se- 
verity of  God." 

In  the  first  of  these  cases  there  is  no  vicissitude  to 
be  expected,  "  The  angels  who  kept  not  their  first 
estate,  but  left  their  own  habitation,  he  hath  reserved 
in  everlasting  chains,  under  darkness  unto  the  judg- 
ment of  the  great  day."  (Jude  6.)  There  is  no  re- 
grafting  of  exscinded  boughs  into  the  heavenly  olive 
tree  ;  they  are  not  only  "  withered  and  without  fruit," 
but  "  twice  dead,  plucked  up  by  the  roots,"  (Jude  12,) 
whose  end,  w^iose  only  end,  is  to  be  burned. 

From  this  hopeless  prospect,  let  us  turn  to  that  of 
our  own  race,  and  consider  the  illustration  of  the  same 
great  truth  afi'orded  by  its  history,  or  rather  that  of 
God's  most  gracious  dispensations  towards  it ;  seeking 
the  necessary  contrast,  not  in  the  comparative  con- 
dition of  men  and  devils,  but  in  the  vicissitudes  pre- 


ROMANS  11,  22.  255 

sented  by  the  case  of  man  alone.  There  could  not  be 
a  stronger  exhibition  of  God's  goodness,  than  in  man's 
creation  and  original  condition.  He  was  made  not 
only  hajjpy,  but  holy.  His  physical,  intellectual,  and 
moral  state  were  all  exalted,  and  yet  all  susceptible 
of  further  exaltation ;  he  was  in  immediate  contact 
and  communion  with  the  source  and  sum  of  all  con- 
ceivable perfection.  Beyond  this,  our  conceptions  of 
God's  goodness  could  not  rise,  but  for  the  new  dis- 
closures which  we  meet  with  afterwards.  True,  man 
was  put  upon  his  trial,  and  that  not  only  for  himself, 
but  for  his  children.  But  how  could  this  detract  from 
the  divine  goodness  in  the  case  of  one  created  holy, 
and  with  nothing  to  complain  of  or  desire,  as  wanting 
to  his  happiness  ?  The  very  test  prescribed,  illustrates 
the  divine  goodness.  What  seems  to  be  its  arbitrary 
character  was  all  in  favour  of  obedience,  and  there- 
fore illustrative  of  the  divine  goodness ;  while  in  the 
same  proportion  it  must  vindicate  the  justice  which 
inexorably  punished  the  transgression. 

Every  stroke  in  the  picture  of  man's  pristine  hap- 
piness sets  out  in  more  prominent  relief  God's  subse- 
quent severity,  not  as  conflicting  opposites,  but  as  the 
lights  and  shades  of  the  same  picture.  Whatever 
selfish  or  morbid  feeling  might  desire  in  an  ideal  case, 
the  severityof  the  divine  dispensations,  when  man  fell, 
is  as  perfectly  accordant  with  our  highest  concep- 
tions of  the  divine  nature,  as  the  previous  exhibition 
of  transcendent  goodness.  We  might  not  be  able  to 
obtain  this  view  by  any  unassisted  use  of  our  own 
faculties,  but  when  presented,  it  approves  itself  to 
reason,  conscience,  and  aifection ;   we  not  only  feel 


256  SERMONS, 

that  sucli  severity  towards  sin  is  reconcilable  with 
what  we  know  of  God,  but  that  without  it,  we  could 
not  now  be  satisfied  ;  the  very  goodness  which  con- 
founded sin  with  holiness  in  indiscriminate  indul- 
gence, would  no  longer  seem  to  be  goodness,  or  at  best 
the  goodness  of  inferior  natures,  not  the  perfect  good 
ness  of  a  perfect  God,  The  subsequent  severity,  in 
stead  of  marring  what  precedes,  throws  back  a  new 
and  glorious  light  upon  it.  Once  convinced  that  the 
severity  and  goodness  are  the  attributes  of  one  and 
the  same  substance,  we  are  forced  to  admit  that  they 
enhance  each  other,  and  even  if  the  history  of  man 
stopped  here,  we  should  be  forced  to  own  that  in  its 
darkened  mirror  the  divine  perfections  were  resplend- 
ent, and  to  cry  out  in  the  language,  not  of  cavil  or 
complaint,  but  of  profound  adoration,  "  Behold  the 
goodness  and  severity  of  God  !  " 

But  thanks  be  to  God,  the  history  of  man  does  not 
stop  here.  The  dismal  scene  which  we  have  just  sur- 
veyed is  but  the  entrance  to  a  new  and  strange  spec- 
tacle. As  we  gaze  upon  the  darkness  into  which  our 
race  was  plunged  by  the  great  original  apostasy,  like 
men  who  gaze  by  night  upon  the  troubled  sea,  be- 
neath which  some  great  fleet  has  just  gone  down,  the 
day  begins  to  dawn,  light  breaks  upon  the  surface  of 
those  heaving  waters,  and  reveals  to  us,  at  first  the 
yawning  gulf  still  open,  into  which  the  victims  have 
descended,  but  the  next  moment,  by  a  strange  de- 
parture from  the  laws  of  nature,  we  behold  them  re- 
appear, or  at  least  some  of  them,  many  of  them  ;  the 
abyss  disgorges  its  devoured  prey,  and  the  ascending 
Bun  illuminates  the  unexpected  spectacle  of  life  from 


ROMANS  11,  22.  257 

the  dead ;  mercy  trinmpliaiit  over  justice.  Yes,  the 
scene  has  again  been  shifted,  or  to  use  a  figure 
worthier  of  the  subject,  the  unchanging  orb  of  the 
Divine  perfections  has  again  revolved,  and  as  we 
watch  its  revolutions,  we  recognize  with  joy  the  phase 
of  mercy,  the  same  pure  light  which  shone  on  Para- 
dise, but  heightened  by  the  contrast  of  the  intervening 
wrath,  and  mellowed  by  the  memory  of  sin  and  sor- 
row, lately  born  into  this  lower  world. 

This  reappearance  of  the  divine  goodness,  when 
it  seemed  to  have  been  swallowed  up  in  wrath  for- 
ever, may  be  likened  to  the  rising  of  the  sun  in  the 
west,  still  dyed  with  crimson  by  his  setting,  to  the 
substitution  of  a  fresh  dawn  for  an  evening  twi- 
light, and  the  prospect  of  a  new  day,  when  a  long 
night  seemed  inevitable.  As  such  a  change  in  the 
order  would  affect  our  senses  and  habitual  associa- 
tions, so  our  hearts  and  consciences  would  be  affected 
by  a  clear,  full  view  of  this  astonishing  vicissitude. 
That  God,  after  all  his  lavish  kindness  to  the  first 
man,  should  requite  his  first  offence  with  such  sever- 
ity, might  seem  surprising,  till  explained  by  a  correct 
view  of  the  divine  holiness  and  justice  as  essential  to 
his  very  being,  but  that  surprise,  even  in  its  first  un- 
rectified  indulgence,  could  be  nothing  to  the  fresh 
surprise  of  men  and  angels  at  the  first  announcement 
of  deliverance  ;  salvation,  not  from  suffering  only,  but 
from  sin  itself ;  not  temporary,  but  eternal ;  not  ca- 
priciously or  arbitrarily  bestowed,  but  rendered  pos- 
sible, and  actually  purchased,  by  the  humiliation  of 
the  Deity  himself,  the  incarnation  of  the  co-essential 
and  co-equal  Son ;  his  subjection  and  obedience  to  the 


258  SERMONS. 

law  which  man  had  broken,  his  endurance  of  the 
penalty  which  man  had  incurred,  his  substitution  for 
the  actual  offence,  his  complete  satisfaction  to  the 
Divine  justice,  his  life,  his  death,  for  such  an  end  as 
this,  showing  the  turpitude  of  sin  in  the  very  act  of 
expiating  it,  and  the  uttemess  and  hopelessness  of 
our  ruin  in  the  very  act  of  retrieving  it ;  oh !  if  this 
is  not  goodness,  where  shall  it  be  found  ?  or  how  shall 
we  conceive  of  it  ?  If  this  is  not  transcendent,  per- 
fect, heavenly,  godlike  goodness,  let  the  word  be 
hushed  up,  and  the  thought  forgotten.  Look,  though 
it  be  but  for  a  moment,  at  the  cross,  and  him  who 
hangs  upon  it,  and  while  in  breathless  silence  you 
count  the  drops  of  more  than  human  or  angelic  blood 
that  fall  upon  the  parched  earth,  cursed  for  man's 
transgression,  but  now  panting  for  deliverance;  by 
the  light  that  streams  from  that  disfigured  brow,  read 
the  old  lesson  written  in  new  characters,  "  Behold  the 
goodness  and  severity  of  God ! " 

No  wonder  that  the  angels  bend  with  an  inquiring 
gaze  over  this  display  of  the  goodness  and  severity  of 
God !  We,  too,  may  well  regard  it  with  adoring 
wonder.  But  let  us  not  lose  sight  of  tlie  great  ob- 
jects here  presented.  Let  us  not  forget,  in  this  new 
exhibition  of  the  divine  goodness,  that  it  also  in- 
volves a  grand  display  of  his  severity.  "We  are  liable 
here  to  the  same  mistake  as  in  a  former  case.  Be- 
cause God  was  so  good  to  man  at  first,  we  feel  sur- 
prised that  he  should  be  severe  when  man  had  fallen. 
And  then,  because  of  that  most  just  severity,  the  ex- 
ercise of  mercy  seems  impossible.  And  now  that 
mercy  has  been  exercised,  free  favour  to  the  utterly 


ROMANS  11,  22.  259 

unworthy  and  the  ill-deserving,  we  are  apt  to  feel  as 
if  all  danger  were  escaped  forever — as  if  ruin  and 
damnation  were  utterly  impossible. 

This  seems  to  be  the  eifect  of  the  j)reaching  of  sal- 
vation upon  many  minds.  The  very  grace  of  God  in- 
cites them  to  go  on  in  sin.  Since  he  has  exercised  such 
boundless  grace  as  to  sacrifice  his  own  Son  for  the  life 
of  a  lost  world,  they  think  it  utterly  incredible  that 
any  should  be  lost ;  or,  if  any,  that  themselves  should 
be  among  the  number.  Their  whole  life  is  a  perpet- 
ual practical  abuse  of  the  great  gospel  doctrine — "  He 
that  spared  not  his  own  Son,"  &c.  The  language  of 
their  lives,  if  not  that  of  their  lips,  is  that  such  tran- 
scendent goodness  shuts  out  all  severity,  as  incon- 
sistent and  its  opposite.  Mercy  has  triumphed  over 
God's  inexorable  justice,  and  disarmed,  if  not  de- 
stroyed it ;  so  that  henceforth  it  is  only  in  recollection 
of  the  past  that  we  can  say,  "  Behold  therefore  the 
goodness  and  severity  of  God." 

This  is  one  of  the  great  practical  delusions  of  the 
Christian  Church,  or  rather  of  the  Christian  dispensa- 
tion, which  prevails  among  the  hearers  of  the  Gospel, 
and  is  often  nourished  by  the  very  advantages  which 
tliey  enjoy,  but  which  must  be  corrected,  or  it  will  go 
on  slaying  its  thousands  and  its  tens  of  thousands — 
the  belief  that  because  God  is  so  merciful,  he  cannot 
be  severe ;  that  because  his  promise  is  so  gracious,  he 
will  not  execute  his  threatenings ;  that  even  the  re- 
jection of  his  offered  grace  will  pass  unpunished ; 
and  that  they  who  refused  to  be  saved  through  Christ, 
will  magnify  the  greatness  of  the  divine  mercy  by  be- 
ing saved  without  him.     The  error  is  refuted  by  the 


260  SERMONS. 

very  nature  of  the  fouudation  upcn  wliicli  it  rests. 
That  foundation  is  the  proof  of  God's  transcendent 
sroodness  in  the  g-ift  of  his  Son  to  be  a  Saviour.  But 
that  gift  is  the  strongest  imaginable  proof  that  God 
will  not  and  cannot  pardon  sin  without  atonement. 
How  absurd,  then,  to  regard  it  as  a  reason  for  expect- 
ing what  it  proves  to  be  impossible  ! 

It  is  also  refuted  b  j  the  analogy  of  all  God's  pre- 
vious dispensations,  both  towards  men  and  angels. 
If  his  goodness  to  the  angels  in  their  first  estate  only 
sets  forth  in -a  stronger  light  his  terrible  severity  when 
they  had  fallen  ;  if  his  goodness  to  man  in  his  original 
condition  is  enhanced  by  contrast  with  severity,  which 
doomed  him  and  his  race  to  everlasting  ruin,  how  can 
the  goodness  which  provides  a  Saviour  and  salvation 
even  for  the  race  thus  ruined,  exclude  the  supposition 
of  proportionate  severity  towards  those  who  will  not 
thus  be  saved  ?  It  does  not ;  it  cannot ;  even  in  theo- 
ry the  reasoning  is  unsound,  because  opposed  to  all 
analogy ;  and  in  practice,  in  experience,  those  who  hold 
it  to  the  end,  will  one  day  be  effectually  undeceived. 
Yes,  the  day  is  coming  when  those  exhibitions  of 
God's  goodness  and  severity,  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking,  shall  be,  as  it  were,  lost  sight  of  and  for- 
gotten in  the  presence  of  a  new,  and  to  many  souls,  an 
unexpected  demonstration,  when  they  who  shall  have 
sinned  on  to  the  verge  of  life,  refusing  to  believe 
in  God's  severity  as  something  inconsistent  with  his 
ffoodness,  shall  be  made  to  see  both  stare  them  in  the 
face  with  terrible  distress,  his  goodness  embodied  in 
the  Saviour  whom  they  have  rejected,  and  on  whose 
blood  they  have  tramj)led — his  severity  in  that  de- 


ROMANS  11,  22.  261 

ridecl  hell  which  they  regarded  as  a  phantom,  and 
from  which  they  would  not  let  him  save  them.  Be- 
tween these  two  fires — the  fire  of  divine  love,  and  the 
fire  of  divine  wrath — the  one,  through  their  obstinate 
impenitence  and  unbelief,  beyond  their  reach ;  the 
other,  opening  its  devouring  jaws  already  to  receive 
them — they  may  cling  convulsively  to  that  which 
is  no  longer  theirs,  even  as  a  temporary  resting-place  ; 
but,  as  they  are  thrust  ofi:'  from  it  forever,  they  shall 
find  their  own  perdition  added  to  the  numberless  ex- 
amples of  the  same  great  truth,  and  hear  the  voice  of 
a  great  multitude,  like  the  rush  of  many  waters,  say, 
"  Behold  the  goodness  and  severity  of  God  !  "  The 
solemn  truth  cannot  be  stated  too  plainly  or  too 
strongly.  The  gospel  is  a  savour  of  death  unto  death 
in  them  that  perish.  To  hear  it  is  a  blessing  only  to 
those  who  believe  and  embrace  it.  To  all  others  it  is 
a  fearful  aggravation  of  their  guilt  and  their  damna- 
tion. Better  never  to  have  heard  the  name  of  Christ, 
than  to  reject  him ;  better  never  to  have  tasted  of 
God's  goodness,  than  to  experience  his  severity. 

The  view  which  we  have  taken,  of  God's  goodness 
and  severity,  has  reference  strictly  only  to  his  deal- 
ings with  the  race  as  such,  just  as  Paul  in  the  text  re- 
fers to  the  dispensation  of  God's  mercy  towards  Jews 
and  Gentiles.  But  the  truth  involved  may  also  be 
applied  to  individuals.  The  general  analogy  holds 
good,  though  not  in  all  particulars.  It  is  true,  my 
hearer,  you  were  never  in  a  state  of  personal  proba- 
tion. That  was  past  in  Adam,  and,  as  his  descend- 
ant, you  are  not  in  danger  of  perdition,  but  are  lost 
already.     What  you  want  is  not  so  much  a  way  of  es- 


262  SERMONS. 

cape  as  a  method  of  recovery.  But  in  another  sense, 
you  are  in  a  probationary  state.  Salvation  is  oiFered, 
and  on  your  acceptance  or  refusal,  hangs  your  ever- 
lasting destiny.  This  possibility,  tliis  opportunity,  il- 
lustrates gloriously  the  goodness  of  God ;  but  the 
neglect  or  abuse  of  it  -svill  no  less  conspicuously  show 
forth  his  severity.  Instead  of  being  mitigated  by  the 
goodness  which  precedes,  his  ultimate  severity  will 
by  it  be  unspeakably  augmented  in  intensity. 

And,  as  this  is  the  clearly-defined  course  of  duty 
and  of  safety  for  the  preachers  of  the  Gospel,  so  it  is 
for  those  who  hear  it.  Let  every  person  who  is  still 
within  the  reach  of  mercy,  look  upon  his  preservation, 
even  thus  far,  as  a  signal  proof  of  the  divine  goodness, 
and  beware  how  you  abuse  it !  Every  gift,  every  ex- 
emption, every  prolongation  of  the  period  allowed 
you  for  repentance  and  conversion  ;  every  providen- 
tial warning,  every  fresh  appeal  to  your  understand- 
ing and  conscience,  every  moment  added  to  the  long, 
long  respite  of  your  fearful  sentence,  every  gleam  of 
hope  that  you  may  yet  escape  its  execution,  every 
motion  of  your  limbs,  every  heaving  of  your  lungs, 
every  pulsation  of  your  heart,  unless  converted  by 
a  true  faith  into  priceless  blessings,  will  infallibly 
plant  daggers  of  supererogatory  torment  in  your  ever- 
dying  soul  hereafter.  While  you  thank  God,  there- 
fore, for  the  gifts  which  you  enjoy,  "be  not  high- 
minded  but  fear  " — "  behold  the  goodness  and  severity 
of  God,  on  them  which  fell  severity,  but  toward  thee 
goodness,  if  thou  continue  in  his  goodness ;  otherwise, 
thou  also  shalt  be  cut  off." 

I  exhort  you  to  depart,  then,  with  a  deep  convic- 


ROMANS  11,  22.  263 

tion  that  the  goodness  and  severity  of  God  are  not  at 
variance,  or  exclusive  of  each  other ;  but  reciprocally 
magnify  each  other ;  that  we  need  not  attempt  to 
make  the  one  of  these  great  attributes  conceal  the 
other,  but  may  look  at  them  together  ; — that  we  must 
thus  view  them  if  we  would  do  justice  to  the  revela- 
tion God  has  given  of  himself.  The  faithful  presenta- 
tion of  the  truth  does  not  require  ns  to  exaggerate 
God's  wrath  by  the  denial  of  his  mercy,  or  to  magnify 
his  goodness  by  denying  his  severity,  or  to  confound 
essential  distinctions  by  asserting  the  identity  of  both. 
We  can  only  declare  the  whole  counsel  of  God  by 
holding  up  to  view  these  two  great  phases  of  his  infi- 
nite perfections.  The  ill  effect  of  gazing  too  exclu- 
sively at  one,  can  only  be  corrected  by  exhibiting  the 
other. 


XIV. 

1  Cor.  15,  33. — Be  not  deceived! 

To  be  deceived  is  a  misfortune  so  familiar  to  tlie 
every-day  experience  of  all  men,  that  some  effort  of 
reflection  and  abstraction  is  required  to  recognize  it 
as  an  evil  in  itself,  and  irrespectively  of  its  effects. 
And  yet  it  seems  to  follow  from  man's  very  nature  as 
a  rational  being,  that  deception,  even  in  the  least  de- 
gree, is  both  injurious  and  disgraceful,  inasmuch  as 
it  implies  some  weakness,  or  inaction,  or  disorder  of 
that  faculty  by  which  we  are  distinguished  from  the 
lower  animals — the  brutes  that  perish.  As  the  act  of 
deceiving  is  a  certain  indication  of  moral  obliquity, 
so  the  very  liability  to  be  deceived  is  symptomatic  of 
some  intellectual  infirmity  or  depravation.  However 
insensible  the  mass  of  men  may  be  to  this  important 
feature  of  their  actual  condition,  there  are  not  want- 
ing partial  and  occasional  perceptions  of  it,  even 
among  those  who  are  commonly  regarded  as  the  least 
intelligent,  or  the  least  accustomed  to  reflect  upon  the 
constitution  and  the  exercises  of  their  own  minds. 
Amidst  the  vast  diversity  of  men's  opinions  and  asso- 
ciations, as  to  praise  and  dispraise,  honour  and  re- 


I 


1  COKINTHIANS  15,  S3.  265 

V 

proacli,  there  is  scarcely  any  thing  more  uniform  or 
universal  than  the  disposition  to  resent  a  wilful  fraud 
or  imposition  as  a  humiliation  and  an  insult,  without 
any  reference  to  the  injury  inflicted,  or  the  impor- 
tance of  the  subject-matter,  as  a  measure  of  the  con- 
scious degradation.  To  have  been  imposed  upon  or 
duped,  even  in  a  trivial  matter,  or  in  jest,  is  often  felt 
more  keenl}^  as  a  personal  dishonour  than  the  foulest 
wrong  or  the  severest  loss,  when  otherwise  inflicted. 
There  are  some  men,  and  perhaps  some  cases  in  whicl: 
all  men,  if  abandoned  to  the  government  of  natural, 
unsanctified  motives,  would  prefer  the  imputation  of 
dishonesty  to  that  of  weakness ;  and  our  Saviour 
neither  spoke  at  random  nor  in  reference  to  a  merely 
Jewish  custom,  when  he  singled  out  "  thou  fool,"  as 
one  of  the  severest  and  least  tolerable  insults  that  a 
man  could  off'er  to  his  fellow.  What  is  all  this  but 
the  testimony  of  m.ankind,  so  much  the  stronger  if 
nnconscious  and  involuntary,  to  its  own  intellectual 
disgrace — the  protest  of  the  intellect  itself  against 
those  daily  and  hourly  humiliations  which  belong 
to  its  actual  anomalous  condition. 

But  this  condition  includes  something  more  and 
something  worse  than  any  depravation  or  deran  ele- 
ment purely  intellectual.  However  humbling  this 
might  be  to  man,  considered  merely  as  a  rational  be- 
ing, it  is  awfully  aggravated  by  its  complication  with 
a  spiritual  malady,  equally  real  and  far  more  malig- 
nant, involving  deadly  alienation  from  the  standard 
of  all  moral  rectitude.  However  distinguishable  and 
indeed  distinct  this  intellectual  and  moral  deprava- 
tion may  be,  and  however  subtilly  philosophers  may 

VOL.  I. — 12 


266  SERMONS. 

speculate  and  reason  as  to  their  priority  and  mutual 
relations,  the  most  interesting  fact  to  us  and  to  all 
men,  as  attested  both  by  revelation  and  experience, 
is  the  fact,  that  the  two  evils  coexist  in  one  case — 
that  to  us,  at  least,  they  spring  from  the  same  cause, 
and  must  be  healed,  if  at  all,  by  the  same  remedy. 

That  this  is  really  the  case,  apart  from  other  most 
conclusive  evidence,  is  proved  by  the  mysterious  ob- 
liquities of  human  intellect,  in  reference  precisely  to 
the  most  momentous  subjects,  where  its  genuine  and 
normal  operation  seems  essential  to  the  welfare  and 
even  to  the  safety  of  the  subject ;  by  the  strange  but 
certain  fact,  not  only  that  the  weak  in  other  things 
are  weak  in  these,  though  even  that  might  be  justly 
regarded  as  surprising,  but  that  those  who  seem 
strong-minded  and  sagacious,  as  to  matters  of  the 
present  life,  so  as  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  all  de- 
ception, are,  in  relation  to  their  highest  interests,  not 
only  liable,  but  actually,  constantly,  ruinously,  shame- 
fully deceived. 

Nor  is  this  a  mere  accident  of  man's  condition, 
which  might  have  been  otherwise  and  yet  have  left 
him,  with  respect  to  all  essentials,  as  he  is.  A  ra- 
tional being  could  not  be  inorally  depraved  with- 
out intellectual  debasement,  whether  this  bo  regard- 
ed as  the  cause,  or  the  effect,  or  the  concomitant  of 
that ;  or  if  this  abstract  proposition  be  disputed,  the 
fact,  in  reference  to  our  depravity,  is  settled  by  our  own 
experience,  confirming  the  in-cessant  exhibition  of  our 
fallen  state  in  scripture,  as  a  state  of  culj)able  but 
pitiable  weakness,  folly,  and  irrationality — of  constant 
exposure  and  subjection  to  the  grossest  as  well  as  the 


1  CORINTHIANS  15,  33.  267 

most  subtle  and  refined  delusions.  The  mysterious 
influence  of  evil  spirits  on  the  character  and  destiny 
of  men,  is  rej)resented  in  the  scriptures,  not  as  a  co- 
ercive povp'er,  but  as  a  deception,  from  the  time  of  Eve, 
who,  being  deceived,  was  in  the  first  transgression,  to 
the  day  when  the  devil  that  deceived  her,  shall  be 
cast  into  the  lake  of  fire.  Through  the  whole  of  this 
long  interval,  there  is  no  description  of  the  race  more 
true  to  scripture  and  experience,  and  at  the  same 
time  more  completely  humbling  to  the  pride  of  man, 
than  that  which  represents  them  as  "foolish,  {dvorjroc, 
irrational,)  disobedient,  deceived,  serving  divers  lusts 
and  pleasures" — or  that  which  describes  "  evil  men 
and  seducers"  as  "  waxing  worse  and  worse,  deceiving 
and  heing  deceived^  There  would  be  something  fear- 
fully bewildering  and  confounding  in  the  sight,  if  we 
could  view  it  in  a  clear  light  and  without  obstruc- 
tion or  optical  illusion,  of  a  world  of  intellect,  thus 
crazed  and  smitten  with  judicial  blindness,  mutually 
leading  one  another  into  error  and  to  ultimate  perdi- 
tion— a  spectacle  of  horror  from  which  no  relief  can 
be  obtained,  except  by  looking  up  to  Him  who  equal- 
ly controls  the  world  of  matter  and  the  world  of  mind, 
and  of  whom  it  may  be  said,  in  this  as  well  as  in  a 
lower  sense,  that  "  with  him  (alone)  is  strength  and 
wisdom — the  deceived  and  the  deceiver  are  his?'' — 
(Job  12,  16.) 

Without  pausing  to  determine  or  enumerate  the 
various  instrumental  agencies  by  which  this  mighty 
process  of  deception  is  continually  carried  on,  and 
which  may  all  be  resolved  into  the  three  great  sources 
of  delusion  and  of  consequent  corruption,   our  own 


2g8.  SERMONS. 

hearts,  our  fellow-men,  and  evil  spirits,  or,  as  the 
scripture  more  empliatically  phrases  it,  the  world, 
the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  let  me  simply  press  upon 
your  notice  and  your  memory,  the  intimate  con- 
nection which  in  all  such  scriptural  delineations,  is 
established  between  human  depravity  and  human 
folly,  so  that  they  interpenetrate  and  mutually  qualify 
each  other,  making  sin  inconceivably  irrational,  and 
foolishness  unutterably  sinful ;  representing  every  un- 
renewed heart  as  "  deceitful  above  all  things,"  to  itself 
as  well  as  others,  and,  for  that  very  reason,  "  despe- 
rately wicked ;  as  hard,  not  by  accident,  or  by  an 
arbitrary,  inevitable  effect  ah  extra,  but  "hardened 
through  the  dcceitfulness  of  sin,"  and  connecting  the 
perdition  of  the  lost,  on  the  one  hand,  indeed,  with 
"  the  working  of  Satan,"  but  on  the  other  "  with  all 
deceivahleness  of  unrighteousness  in  them  that  per- 
ish, because  they  received  not  the  love  of  the  truth, 
that  they  might  be  saved  ;  for  which  cause  God  shall 
send  them  strong  delusions,  to  believe  a  lie,  that  all 
might  be  damned  who  believed  not  the  truth,  but  had 
pleasure  in  unrighteousness." — (2  Thess.  2,  9^12.) 

ITow  this  is  the  condition  from  which  Christ  re- 
deems us.  Of  him,  as  a  Saviour,  no  less  than  of  God, 
as  the  sovereign  arbiter,  it  may  be  said,  "  the  deceived 
and  the  deceiver  are  his."  Tlie  effect  of  Christianity, 
i.  e.  of  personal  regeneration,  is,  to  put  an  end  to  this 
perpetual  deception,  active  and  passive,  to  the  habit 
of  deceiving  and  to  the  condition  of  being  deceived. 
Such  is  undoubtedly  the  actual  experience  of  every 
penitent,  believing  sinner  ;  but,  as  conversion,  though 
it  breaks  the  power  and  destroys  the  dominion  of  our 


1  CORINTHIANS  15,  33.  269 

natural  corruption,  does  not  utterly  abolish  it,  but 
leaves  us  to  struggle  with  the  remtants  of  it  through 
the  present  life,  this  new  and  strange  condition  of  the 
soul  displays  itself  in  that  specific  form,  or  part  of  our 
corrujDtion  which  we  have  been  now  considering,  as 
truly  as  in  every  other.  The  fatal  spell  of  sin  is 
broken,  the  great  governing  delusion  of  the  mind  and 
of  the  life  has  been  dispelled,  and  can  never  be  re- 
ncM'ed  in  the  same  form  or  the  same  degree.  But  it 
would  be  a  great  and  dangerous  mistake  to  think  that 
all  deception  is  henceforth  impossible,  even  in  refer- 
ence to  spiritual  interests  and  objects.  The  contin- 
ued danger  of  delusion,  oven  as  to  these,  is  one  of  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  Christian  life  on  earth, 
or  the  condition  of  the  church  militant,  distinguishing 
it  from  that  of  the  church  triumphant.  The  cause  or 
ground  of  its  continuance,  though  certainly  myste- 
rious, is  not  more  so  in  this  case  than  in  any  other 
part  of  tliat  severe  but  salutary  discipline,  by  which 
the  faitli  and  love  of  God's  elect  are  to  be  purified 
and  strengthened  before  they  enter  into  glory.  Of 
this  discipline,  for  which  multitudes  who  once  groaned 
under  it  are  now  thanking  God  in  heaven,  the  con- 
tinued possibility  of  error  and  deception  is  a  consti- 
tuted part,  and  may  therefore  be  regarded  as  an  in- 
dispensable ingredient  of  that  "  much  tribulation," 
through  which  "  we  must  enter  the  kingdom  of  God," 
that  "  great  tribulation,"  out  of  which  they  came, 
who  have  already  "  washed  their  robes  and  made 
them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb,"  and  which, 
even  in  the  mean  time,  "  worketh  patience,  and  pa 
tience  experience,  and  experience  hope — a  hope  tha< 


270  SERMONS. 

maketli  not  ashamed,  because,  even  no  w,  the  love  of 
God  is  shed  abroad  in  our  hearts  by  the  Holy  Ghost 
which  is  given  unto  us," 

Of  the  fact  itself,  that  even  true  believers  are  in 
danger  of  deception,  which,  though  not  allowed  to  be 
destroying,  may  be  hurtful  and  distressing  to  them 
selves  and  others,  if  proof  be  needed,  it  is  furnished, 
besides  others  which  I  shall  not  stop  to  mention,  by 
the  frequent  v,'arnings  against  this  very  peril,  ad- 
dressed by  Christ  and  his  apostles,  not  to  unbelieving 
and  impenitent  sinners,  but  to  our  Saviour's  own  dis- 
ciples, and  through  them  to  the  churches  which  they 
founded  and  instructed.  "  Take  heed  lest  any  man 
deceive  you,"  was  a  solemn  form  of  words,  employed 
by  Christ  himself  upon  a  solemn  occasion ;  and  it 
finds  an  echo  in  that  phrase  which  Paul  so  frequent- 
ly reiterates,  that  it  has  been  called  one  of  his  fa- 
vourite expressions,  "  Be  not  deceived,"  "  Be  not  de- 
ceived." Can  this  incessant  warning  be  a  false  alarm, 
or  have  respect  to  aji  imaginary  danger?  If  we 
think  so,  we  have  reason  to  regard  it  as  esj)ecially  ad- 
dressed to  us,  for  to  nothing  more  than  to  the  danger 
of  delusion  and  deception  are  those  warnings  of  the 
same  apostle  more  appropriate — "  Be  not  high-mind- 
ed, but  fear" — and — "  Let  him  that  thinketh  he  stand- 
Gth  take  heed  lest  he  fall !" 

This  general  view,  however,  of  the  danger  to 
which  we  are  exposed,  can  be  practically  and  effectu- 
ally useful,  only  by  prompting  the  inquiry,  when  and 
where,  or  in  relation  to  what  specific  evils,  are  we 
thus  in  peril  ?  The  attempt  to  ascertain  these  by  con- 
jecture,  or   by  reasoning  from   abstract  principles. 


1  CORINTHIANS  15,  33.  2Y1 

would  be  not  only  endless,  from  tlie  infinite  variety 
of  cases  wliich  might  be  supposed,  br.t  unsafe,  from 
the  doubts  which  might  still  be  entertained,  if  not  as 
to  the  actual  existence,  yet  as  to  the  magnitude  and 
nearness  of  the  dangers  which  might  be  described. 
From  both  these  disadvantages  we  may  escape,  and 
at  the  same  time  be  provided  with  a  valuable  safe- 
guard against  certain  perils,  by  confining  our  atten- 
tion, for  the  present,  to  the  special  cases  which  occa- 
sioned the  original  utterance  of  these  solemn  warn- 
ings not  to  be  deceived,  and  which  are  all,  without 
exception,  common  to  the  general  experience  of  the 
church  and  to  the  personal  experience  of  its  mem- 
bers. -By  pursuing  this  course,  the  same  passages  of 
scripture  which  establish  the  existence  of  the  danger 
as  a  general  fact,  may  be  employed  as  clues  to  guide 
us  in  the  application  of  the  salutary  knowledge  thus 
imparted  to  specific  cases. 

1.  When  our  Saviour  said,  "Take  heed  lest  any 
man  deceive  you,"  the  particular  deception  which  he 
had  in  view,  was  that  in  reference  to  his  second  com- 
ing, and  the  assumption  of  his  name  and  person  by 
pretenders  or  impostors.  The  experience  of  the 
church  has  shown  that  tliis  was  not  a  temporary, 
transient  danger  ;  for  although  the  appearance  of  false 
Christs  may  not  have  been  a  frequent  occurrence,  this 
is  only  the  gravest  or  extreme  form  of  the  peril  against 
which  our  Lord  forewarned  his  followers.  The  more 
refined  and  specious  form  of  the  deception,  consists, 
not  in  the  personal  assumption  of  Christ's  name, 
but  in  the  confident  assurance  of  his  near  approach, 
and   the    attempt    to   determine   what   he   has    left 


272  SERMONS. 

indefinite,  not  as  a  matter  of  mere  specnliv.tion,  but  aa 
an  engine  of  fanatical  excitement,  interrupting  all  the 
ordinary  duties  and  relations  of  society,  withdrawing 
men's  attention  from  the  claims  of  personal  religion 
and  from  preparation  for  their  own  departure  out  of 
life,  to  fix  it  on  a  great  catastrophe  supposed  to  be  at 
hand,  and  to  be  dreaded  only  as  the  most  impious  and 
impenitent  of  men  might  dread  a  deluge  and  an  earth- 
quake ;  and  driving  some,  through  mere  excitement 
and  alarm,  to  madness  or  to  self-destruction.  This,  if 
only  known  to  us  historically  or  by  a  remote  tradi- 
tion, might  be  thought  incredible  ;  and  yet  it  is  one 
of  the  most  recent  and  familiar  forms  of  popular  de- 
lusion, the  effects  of  which  are  still  felt  in  communi- 
ties and  families  around  us,  while  stimulating  and  pro- 
ductive causes  are  continually  seething  and  ferment- 
ing in  the  caldron  of  fanatical  religion,  fanciful  in- 
terpretation, false  philosophy,  and  social  revolution, 
Avhich  is  boiling  up  and  bubbling  in  the  very  midst 
of  Christian  churches  and  of  learned  institutions, 
ready  to  boil  over,  when  the  necessary  point  of  heat 
or  fermentation  has  been  reached,  with  a  fresh  inun- 
dation of  insane  disorder,  to  be  followed  by  a  fresh 
reaction  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  spiritual  sloth  and 
deadness. 

l!Tor  is  the  warning  thus  afforded,  to  be  limited  to 
this  precise  kind  of  delusion,  but  extended  to  all  other 
enthusiastic  and  fanatical  excitements,  which  produce 
analogous  effects  by  like  means,  and  which  educated 
and  enlightened  Christians  are  too  commonly  con- 
tented to  despise  as  mere  absurdities,  from  which  no 
danger  can  be  appreliended.     There  is  no  intellectual 


1  CORINTHIANS  15,  33.  273 

or  moral  feature  of  the  age  more  striking  and  alarm- 
ing than  the  frequency  with  which  men  of  strong  and 
cultivated  minds  are  carried  away  by  forms  of  error, 
which  to  others  of  the  same  class  appear  simply  ridic- 
ulous. It  is  not  bad  logic  or  erroneous  reasoning  that 
produces  these  resuits  ;  it  is  delusion  ;  it  is  something 
that  prevents  the  proper  use  of  reason,  and  by  making 
revelation  a  mere  nose  of  wax,  enables  thQ  subject  of 
deception  to  pass  with  equal  ease  over  the  smallest 
and  the  greatest  intervals,  to  leap  from  truth  not  only 
into  error,  great  or  small,  but  into  nonsense,  contra- 
diction, and  fatuity,  the  practical  negation  of  his  own 
intelligence,  as  well  as  the  rejection  of  all  previous 
knowledge  and  belief.  Among  the  victims  of  these 
strong  delusions  are  some  who  once  securely  laughed 
at  their  pretensions  as  absurd,  and  therefore  innocent ; 
as  most  men  do  until  they  are  bewitched  by  them. 
The  growing  frequency  of  such  irrational  conversions, 
even  in  high  places,  and  among  what  we  regard  as 
privileged  classes,  ought  to  teach  us  the  necessity  of 
something  better  than  intellectual  attainments  or  ad- 
vantages, to  save  us  even  from  what  now  appears  to 
us  the  drivel  of  idiocy  or  the  rage  of  madness,  and 
give  us  ears  to  hear  the  Master  saying,  even  of  these 
things,  and  even  to  ourselves,  "  Take  heed,  take  heed 
lest  any  man  deceive  you." 

2.  Twice,  in  the  same  epistle,  Paul  says  to  the 
church  of  the  Corinthians,  "  Be  not  deceived ! "  In  the 
first  of  these  cases,  (1  Cor.  6,  9,)  the  admonition  may  to 
many,  seem  as  needless  and  superfluous  as  that  ad- 
dressed by  Christ  to  his  disciples.  If  none  of  us  require 
to  be  warned  against  false  prophets  or  pretended  Christs, 
VOL.  I. — 12* 


274  SERMONS. 

how  mucli  less  can  we  need  to  be  admonislied  tliat  tlie 
joys  of  heaven  are  not  reserved  for  those  who  practise 
the  most  heinous  sins,  not  only  of  a  spiritual  and  in- 
sidions,  but  of  a  corporeal  and  outward  kind.  "Who 
is,  or  ever  was,  in  danger  of  supposing  that  idolaters, 
adulterers,  extortioners,  revilers,  -thieves,  drunkards, 
and  the  perpetrators  of  enormities  still  worse,  are  to 
inherit  the,kingdom  of  God  ?  And  yet  it  is  precisely 
this  impossible  delusion  against  which  Paul  warns  his 
readers,  not  only  here  but  in  Ephesians  (5,  6,)  where 
a  similar  enumeration  of  the  blackest  crimes  is  fol- 
lowed by  the  solemn  admonition,  "  Let  no  man  de- 
ceive you  with  vain  words,  for  because  of  these  things 
Cometh  the  wrath  of  God  upon  the  children  of  diso- 
bedience." It  was  not  to  uninstructed  heathen  that 
this  language  was  addressed ;  for  he  says'  expressly 
in  the  verse  preceding,  (Eph.  5,  5,)  Ye  know  that 
no  whoremonger,  nor  unclean  person,  nor  covetous 
man,  who  is  an  idolater,  hath  any  inheritance  in  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  and  of  God."  It  was  not  ad- 
dressed to  uninstmcted,  impenitent  or  unconverted 
hearers  of  the  gospel,  for  he  says  in  the  verse  follow- 
ing, (Eph.  5,  7,)  "  Be  not  ye  therefore  partakers  with 
them ;  for  ye  were  sometime  darkness,  but  now  are 
ye  light  in  the  Lord."  And  as  in  Ephesus,  so  in 
Corinth  ;  after  enumerating  some  of  the  most  revolt- 
ing forms  of  himian  wickedness,  he  adds,  (1  Cor.  6, 
11,)  "  and  such  were  some  of  you ;  but  ye  ai'e  washed, 
but  ye  are  sanctified,  but  ye  are  justified  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  by  the  Spirit  of  our  God."  It 
was  to  justified,  regenerated,  sanctified  believers,  that 
the  apostie  addressed  this  apparently  gratuitous  as- 


1  CORINTHIANS  15,  33.  275 

surance  that  those  who  continued  in  the  practice  of 
gross  vices  could  not  be  saved. 

What  was  the  error  against  which  he  meant  to 
warn  them  ?  ISTot  the  mere  theoretical  or  doctrinal 
absurdity  of  believing  that  men  could  be  saved  from 
sin,  and  yet  continue  in  it,  for  of  this  paralogism  the 
Corinthian  and  Ephesian  converts  were  in  as  little 
danger  as  ourselves  ;  but  the  practical  paralogism  of 
thinking  themselves  Christians  when  their  lives  be- 
lied it ;  the  self-contradiction  of  a  high  profession  and 
a  lawless  life.  Is  this  inconsistency  impossible? 
Alas !  it  is  among  the  most  familiar  features  of  re- 
ligious life  in  every  age  and  every  country.  Ashamed 
as  all  would  be  to  teach  it  or  to  hold  it  as  a  formal 
-proposition,  how  many  practice  it  and  preach  it  by 
example,  without  a  scruple  and  without  a  blush  !  It 
is  in  vain  to  say  the  combination  is  absurd,  it  must 
be  an  imaginary  one.  Precisely  the  same  reasoning 
might  be  used  to  demonstrate  that  there  is  no  sin  at 
all,  for  all  sin  is  irrational,  and  every  act  of  sin  ad- 
mits of  a  reductio  ad  absurdum.  But  in  tins,  as  in  the 
other  case,  it  is  not  a  mistake  in  logic,  but  in  morals. 
It  is  not  weak  reasoning,  it  is  strong  delusion  of  the 
heart  as  well  as  of  the  head,  and  one  to  which  the 
highest  are  as  open  as  the  lowest,  the  wisest  as  the 
weakest  and  the  most  besotted,  if  abandoned  to  their 
own  resources.  Here,  again,  the  instances  of  this  de- 
lusion are  confined  to  no  church,  country,  or  con- 
dition of  society.  Explain  it  or  deny  it  as  you  will, 
the  fact  is  written  in  the  records  of  the  church,  and 
in  the  memory  of  the  world,  that  men  of  eminent  en- 
(lownients  and  conspicuous  position,  whatever  may 


276  SERMONS. 

have  been  their  creed  or  theoretical  convic/ion,  have 
lived  precisely  as  thej  must  have  lived,  if  they  had 
really  examined  and  believed  the  monstrous  blas- 
phemy, against  which  Paul  so  earnestly  forewarns  us, 
saying,  Be  not  deceived  ! 

3.  But  if  this  delusion,  after  all,  should  seem  too 
monstrous  in  itself,  or  too  remote  from  our  experience, 
to  be  made  the  subject  of  a  serious  admonition  to  pro- 
fessing Christians,  let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  another 
case,  in  which  the  same  apostle  uses  the  same  for- 
mula. Be  not  deceived  !  The  readers  immediately  ad- 
dressed are  the  Galatians,  who  had  swerved  from  the 
simplicity  of  gospel  doctrine  under  the  influence  of 
Judaizing  teachers,  and  besides  the  fatal  error  which 
they  had  embraced  in  theory  by  falling  from  grace, 
i.  e.,  from  the  doctrine  of  gratuitous  salvation,  seem 
to  have  been  betrayed,  as  might  have  been  expect- 
ed, into  other  false  opinions,  tending  more  or  less  to 
vitiate  their  Christian  character  and  course  of  life. 
Among  these  there  appears  to  have  been  one,  grow- 
ing rather  out  of  the  abuse  than  the  rejection  of  the 
doctrines  of  free  grace ;  the  notion  that,  provided  men 
are  saved,  it  matters  little  Iioay  they  live,  since  all  are 
to  be  saved  alike,  and  tlie  imperfections  of  believers, 
nay,  their  worst  neglects  of  duty,  and  most  heinous 
violations  of  the  law  of  God,  can  have  no  effect  uj)on 
tlieir  ultimate  condition  or  eternal  destiny.  In  oppo- 
sition to  this  error,  far  more  specious  and  insidious 
than  either  of  the  others,  and  therefore  not  unlikely 
to  be  harboured  where  the  others  never  gain  access, 
he  teaches  that  the  laws  of  spiritual  life  are  as  deter- 
minate and  uniform  as  those  of  nature,  that  even  true 


1  COEINTHIANS  15,  33.  277 

believers  will  not  be,  by  miracles,  exempted  from  their 
operation,  and  that  although  saved  by  sovereign  mercy 
from  perdition,  and  made  perfect  in  holiness,  the  soul's 
capacity  and  actual  experience  of  good  hereafter  will 
bear  due  proportion  to  its  progress  here ;  its  growth 
in  grace,  sanctification,  union  with  Christ,  communion 
with  God,  separation  from  sin,  and  assimilation  to 
the  divine  nature. 

Kthe  subtle  perversion  of  the  Gospel  doctrine,  liere 
corrected,  is  a  natural  and  almost  certain  growth  of 
human  weakness  and  corruption,  even  under  the  pre- 
vailing influence  of  saving  grace,  and  therefore  not 
confined  to  certain  periods,  or  places,  or  conditions  of 
the  church,  or  of  society  at  large,  but  liable  and  likely 
to  spring  up  as  tares  among  the  wheat,  wherever 
men  are  men,  and  sin  is  sin;  we  should  require  no 
special  pleading  to  convince  us,  or  impassioned  ex- 
hortation to  persuade  us,  that  the  great  apostle  "  be- 
ing dead  yet  speaketh  "  unto  us,  as  he  spoke  of  old  to 
the  Galatians,  saying,  '■^  £e  not  deceived  j  God  is  not 
mocked  ;  for  whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he 
also  reap.  For  he  that  soweth  to  the  flesh  shall  of 
the  flesh  reap  corruption ;  but  he  that  soweth  to  the 
Spirit,  shall  of  the  Spirit  reap  life  everlasting."  (Gal. 
6,  7.  8.) 

4.  To  some  of  you,  my  hearers,  I  rejoice  to  be- 
lieve that  even  this  monition,  although  recognized  as 
resting  on  Divine  authority  and  certain  truth,  may 
not  be  specially  or  personally  applicable,  on  the 
ground  of  any  present  and  immediate  danger,  or  of 
actual  subjection  to  the  several  delusions  which  have 
been  described,  and  with  which  the  apostle  has  asso- 


278  SERMONS. 

ciated  that  remarkable  expression,  J3e  not  deceived ! 
I  need  scarcely  saj''  that  this  exemption  from  decep- 
tion, or  tlie  risk  of  it  is,  even  in  the  best  and  most 
favourable  case,  restricted  and  precarious,  since  every 
human  heart,  so  long  as  any  residue  of  its  corraption 
still  remains  is,  in  itself,  exposed  to  all  the  evil  which 
that  corruption  is  capable  of  producing,  when  free 
from  the  restraints  of  sovereign  grace.  But  since 
that  grace  does  operate,  and  those  restraints  are  really 
imposed,  you  may  undoubtedly  be  free  at  this  time 
from  the  pressure  of  these  strong  delusions,  from  fan- 
atical incitements  and  hallucinations,  and  from  every 
form  of  Antinomian  license.  K  this  be  so,  you  will 
acknowledge  your  peculiar  obligation,  not  only  to 
thank  God  for  his  delivering  mercy  and  restraining 
grace,  but  also  to  abstain  from  every  thing  that 
would  endanger  the  security  and  liberty  which  you 
enjoy.  Among  the  dangers  thus  to  be  avoided,  I 
will  name  but  one,  and  in  the  choice  of  that  one  I 
shall  still  be  guided  by  the  apostolic  warnings  not  to 
be  deceived.  It  is  the  danger  of  forgetting  that  the 
lowest  and  most  moderate  degrees  of  Christianity, 
though  really  distinct  and  distant,  to  the  eye  of  God, 
from  the  highest  attainments  of  a  mere  morality,  and 
still  more  from  the  forms  of  hypocritical  profession, 
may  resemble  both  in  human  estimation,  and  be 
brought  into  juxtaposition  with  them  in  the  ordinary 
intercom-se  of  life.  How  natural  and  amiable  is  the 
wish  to  make  this  intercourse  as  peaceable  as  may  be, 
and  for  this  end  to  sacrifice  whatever  seems  to  be  a 
needless  rigour  and  austerity,  endeavouring  to  oblit- 
erate or  cover  the  invidious  line  of  demarkation  which 


I 


I 


1  CORINTHIANS  15,  33.  279 

unliappily  divides  tlie  cliurcli  and  world;  going  as 
far  as  the  most  yielding  conscience  will  allow,  in  par- 
taking of  tliose  pleasures  whicli  a  more  morose  re- 
ligion would  proscribe,  as  dangerous,  if  not  unlawful, 
under  the  specious  pretext  of  avoiding  sanctimonious 
preciseness,  and  of  "  winning  souls  "  by  wise  accom- 
modation and  concession  to  the  innocent  or  even  to 
the  doubtful  customs  of  society.  K  any  of  you  are 
now  pursuing  this  course — as  thousands  have  pur- 
sued it  in  every  age — you  may  not  be  prepared  for 
the  suggestion,  that  perhaps  you  are  mistaken  after 
all,  and  that  if  the  warning  voice  of  "  Paul  the  Aged" 
could  now  reach  you  from  his  grave  in  Eome  or  from 
his  throne  in  heaven,  it  might  only  be  to  say  again 
to  you,  as  he  said  to  the  Corinthians  1800  years  ago, 
"  Be  not  deceived  !  evil  communicaiioiis  corrujpt  good 
manners.  Awake  to  rigJiteousness  and  sin  not  /  for 
some  have  not  the  hnoicledge  of  God.  I  speaJc  this 
to  your  shameP     (1  Cor.  15,  33.  34.) 


XV. 

Acts  28,  28. — Be  it  known  therefore  unto  you,  that  the  salvation 
of  God  is  sent  unto  the  Gentiles,  and  that  they  will  hear  it. 

FAinLiAK  as  long  practice  lias  now  made  it,  tliere 
is  still  something  strange  in  tlie  facility  with  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  apply  to  ourselves  and  our  con- 
temporaries, terms  that  are  strictly  appropriate  only 
to  a  former  dispensation.  I  do  not  here  refer  to  the 
prevailing  practice  of  appropriating  to  the  Christian 
church  the  promises  originally  uttered  to  the  house 
of  Israel ;  for  this,  I  doubt  not,  is  in  strict  accordance 
with  their  true  design  and  import.  But  I  mean  the 
habit  of  transferring  to  our  own  times  what  was  really 
temporary  in  design,  and  has  in  fact  long  ceased  to 
be.  A  striking  instance  is  afforded  by  the  way  in 
which  we  talk  about  the  "  Gentiles,"  as  if  we  were 
"  Jews,"  and  bore  the  same  relation  to  the  heathen  that 
existed  between  Jews  and  Gentiles  under  the  restrict- 
ive institutions  of  the  old  economy.  Such  is  the  force 
of  words,  to  influence  as  well  as  to  express  thought, 
that  by  dint  of  constant  repetition,  men  may  actually 
come  at  last  to  think  themselves  a  chosen  and  pecu- 
liar people,  not  only  in  the  spiritual  Christian  sense, 
but  in  the  national  external  sense. 


ACTS  28,  28.  281 

The  very  existence  of  this  disposition  to  confound 
things  so  dissimilar  affords  a  proof  that  with  all  their 
dissimilitude,  there  must  be  strong  points  of  resem- 
blance, and  it  may  not  be  unprofitable,  therefore,  to 
consider  briefly  what  these  points  of  resemblance  are ; 
in  what  sense,  and  to  what  extent,  our  tacit  assump- 
tion of  the  Jewish  character  and  standing  may  be 
justified,  and  also  by  what  dangers  and  responsibil- 
ities, or  what  advantages  and  honours  this  distinction 
is  attended.  In  attempting  this  comparison,  it  will 
be  found  to  favour  concentration  and  precision  to  se- 
lect some  one  turning  point,  some  critical  juncture, 
in  the  history  of  Israel,  at  which  the  Jewish  character 
and  spirit  were  peculiarly  developed,  and  if  possible 
brought  into  immediate  juxtaposition  with  the  corres- 
ponding traits  of  Christianity.  Such  a  conjuncture 
is  the  one  at  which  the  words  of  the  text  were  uttered, 
when  the  old  economy  had  really  been  abrogated  by 
the  advent  of  the  Saviom*,  and  the  Jewish  world  was 
rent  asunder  through  its  whole  extent  by  the  great 
dividing  question  "  What  think  ye  of  Christ  ?  "  In 
consequence  of  this  very  agitation,  Paul  becomes  a 
prisoner  and  is  sent  to  Rome.  But  even  there  he 
preaches  the  gospel,  in  obedience  to  his  Lord's  com- 
mand, "beginning  at  Jerusalem;"  even  there,  the 
first  call  is  addressed  to  "  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house 
of  Israel."  He  convokes  the  chief  men  of  the  Jews, 
of  which  race  and  religion  it  would  seem,  from  the 
contemporary  statements  of  Josephus,  there  were 
thousands  then  in  Eome.  To  this  representative  as- 
sembly of  his  people,  he  addressed  a  vindication  of 
himself  and  of  his  master;    of  himself  as  guiltless 


282  SERMONS. 

even  with  respect  to  Judaism,  and  tliongli  ground- 
lessly  accused  devoid  of  malice  towards  liis  enemies  ; 
of  Christ,  as  the  "  hope  of  Israel,"  for  whose  sake, 
said  he,  "  I  am  bound  with  this  chain,"  thus  connect' 
ing,  in  the  clearest  and  most  striking  form,  his  per- 
sonal captivity  with  that  great  cause  for  which  he 
counted  it  all  joy  to  suffer. 

Being  assured  by  those  who  heard  him,  of  their 
willingness  to  do  him  justice,  and  their  wish  to  know 
more  of  this  sect  or  heresy  which  everywhere  was 
spoken  against,  he  drops  all  personal  considerations, 
and  to  the  many  who  assembled  at  his  lodgings  on  a 
day  appointed,  he  "  expounds  and  testifies  the  king- 
dom of  God,"  that  is  to  say,  the  nature  of  the  new 
dispensation  as  distinguished  from  the  old,  "persuad- 
ing them  concerning  Jesus,"  i.  e.,  proving  him  to  be 
the  promised  Christ,  the  substance  of  the  ancient 
shadows,  and  in  this  sense,  as  in  others,  the  "  end  of 
the  law  ;  "  proving  all  this  "  out  of  Moses  and  the 
Prophets,"  "  from  the  morning  till  the  evening." 
When  he  found,  as  he  no  doubt  had  foreseen,  that 
they  were  not  agreed  among  themselves,  and  that 
"  some  did  not  believe,"  he  parted  from  them  after 
he  had  spoken  "  one  word,"  and  a  fearful  word  it  was, 
being  nothing  less  than  that  appalling  premonition 
of  judicial  blindness,  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  Isaiah, 
for  which  the  Prophet  was  himself  prepared  by  a 
solemn  vision  and  a  symbolical  assurance  of  forgive- 
ness. To  this  application  of  an  awful  threatening  he 
adds,  "Be  it  known  unto  you  therefore,"  i.  e.,  be- 
cause you  thus  reject  the  hope  of  Israel,  for  whose 
sake  the  Mosaic  economy  existed,  and  at  whose  ap- 


i 


ACTS  28,  28.  283 

proach  it  was  to  crumble,  "be  it  known  nnto  yon, 
that  tlie  salvation  of  God  is  sent  unto  tlie  Gentiles, 
and  that  they  will  hear  it."  In  like  manner,  Taul 
and  Barnabas  had  said,  long  before,  to  the  unbeliev- 
ing Jews  of  Antioch  in  Pisidia,  "  it  was  necessary  that 
the  word  of  God  should  first  have  been  spoken  to 
you  ;  but  seeing  ye  put  it  from  you,  and  judge  your- 
selves unworthy  of  eternal  life,  lo  we  turn  unto  the 
Gentiles."  And  again,  when  those  of  Corinth  con- 
tradicted and  blasphemed,  "  Paul  shook  his  raiment, 
and  said  unto  them,  Your  blood  be  upon  your  own 
heads,  I  am  clean,  from  henceforth  I  will  go  imto  the 
Gentiles." 

The  same  oflfer,  the  same  refusal,  and  the  same  re- 
sult, are  expressed  or  implied  in  the  passage  now  be- 
fore us.  Its  particular  expressions  need  but  little 
explanation.  Tlie  "  salvation  of  God,"  literally,  his 
saving  thing,  or  that  by  which  he  saves,  does  not  here 
mean  the  actual  experience  of  salvation,  but,  as  ap- 
pears from  the  last  clause  of  the  verse,  in  which  it 
is  spoken  of  as  something  to  be  heard,  the  doctrines, 
message,  offer,  or  glad  tidings  of  salvation  ;  the  same 
that  Paul  to  the  Pisidians  calls  "  the  word  of  this  sal- 
vation." The  phrase  "  and  they  will  hear  it "  might 
perhaj)s  be  more  exactly  rendered,  "  they  too  shall 
hear  it."  By  a  simple  change  of  emphasis,  however, 
the  expression  may  be  made  to  convey  these  two 
ideas,  or  modifications  of  the  same  idea,  that  they 
shall  and  that  they  will  hear  the  message  of  salva- 
tion ;  that  they  shall,  in  the  dispensations  of  God's 
providence,  enjoy  the  opportunity  of  hearing ;  and 
that  through  the  dispensations  of  his  grace,  they  will 


284  SERMONS. 

give  ear  to  it.  All  this  may  therefore  be  considered 
as  included  in  the  meaning  of  the  text. 

But  the  main  point  to  which  I  would  invite  your 
attention,  is  the  contrast  here  exhibited  between  the 
Christianity  of  Paul  and  the  Judaism  of  his  hearers, 
under  circumstances  singularly  suited  to  bring  out, 
in  bold  relief,  the  characteristic  attributes  of  both,  so 
that  if  we  would  compare  ourselves  with  either,  we 
could  hardly  ask  a  better  opportunity.  And  as  one 
part  of  the  comparison  essentially  involves  the  other, 
let  us  inquire  in  what  points,  if  in  any,  we  may  claim 
affinity  with  these  representatives  of  Judaism,  at  the 
eventful  epoch  of  its  dying  striTggle  with  the  infant 
church. 

1.  The  first  resemblance  which  I  would  suggest 
is,  that  they,  like  us,  had  long  been  in  possession  of  ex- 
clusive privileges,  and  accustomed  to  siirvey  without 
emotion  the  great  mass  of  mankind  deprived  of  them. 
This  is  the  grand  assimilating  fact  in  their  condition  and 
in  ours,  which  has  led  to  the  habitual  adoption  of  their 
language,  and  appropriation  to  ourselves  of  what  is 
really  peculiar  to  their  insulated  and  unique  position. 
The  ancient  Jews  were  in  exclusive  possession  of  the 
scriptures,  a  pure  worship),  and  an  authorized  minis- 
try. So  are  Christians  now,  as  compared  with  mil- 
lions of  heathen,  and  the  Protestant  churches,  in  com- 
parison even  with  millions  of  nominal  Christians. 
Hence  it  seems  natural  and  not  nm-easonable  to  re- 
gard ourselves  as  bearing  just  the  same  relation  to 
the  Gentiles  of  the  present  day,  as  that  sustained  by 
Israel  to  the  Gentiles  of  antiquity.  But  let  us  not,  in 
looking  at  the  marked  points  of  resemblance,  over- 


I 


ACTS  28,  28.  285 

look  the  no  less  marked  points  of  dirersity  between 
the  cases.  The  exclusive  privileges  of  the  ancient 
Jews,  were  theirs  by  an  express  divine  appointment. 
The  barriers,  which  divided  them  from  other  nations, 
although  temporary  in  design,  were  reared  by  an 
Ahnighty  hand,  and  could  be  demolished  by  no 
other.  Their  adherence  to  these  old  restrictions,  after 
the  set  time  for  their  removal  had  arrived,  was  indeed 
an  act  of  flagrant  unbelief  and  disobedience  ;  but  until 
that  time  came,  they  had  no  choice,  they  were  shut 
up  to  the  necessity  of  standing  aloof,  and  living  apart, 
and  avoiding  all  communion  with  the  nations  as  such. 
Does  our  situation  correspond  with  this?  Are  our 
exclusive  privileges  forced  upon  us,  as  it  were  by  ir- 
resistible authority  ?  K  not,  our  insulation  from  the 
world  is  very  diflerent  from  that  of  ancient  Israel. 
So  far  as  the  enclosures  which  have  shut  us  in  are 
human  structures,  reared  by  selfishness  and  cement- 
ed by  apathy,  they  differ  wholly  from  the  walls  by 
which  the  ancient  Zion  was  encompassed,  and  her 
sons  withheld  from  all  communion  with  the  Gen- 
tiles. They  had  been  taught,  and  by  divine  authori- 
ty, to  look  upon  the  nations  as  excluded,  for  a  time, 
from  the  covenant  of  mercy.  "We  have  been  taught, 
and  by  the  same  authority,  that  these  in  all  respects 
are  heirs  of  the  same  promise.  They,  as  a  nation, 
were  in  fact  the  chosen  and  peculiar  people  of  Jeho- 
vah. We,  in  this  respect,  have  not,  and  never  had, 
the  shadow  of  a  claim  to  take  precedence  of  our  fel- 
low Gentiles.  In  a  word,  considering  the  divine  in- 
stitutions out  of  which  their  prejudices  grew,  and  the 
want  of  an}^  corresponding  pretext  for  our  own,  we 


286  SERMONS. 

may  saj,  without  irreverence  or  perversion,  that  they 
were  straitened  in  Moses  and  the  Proj)hets,  but  that 
we,  if  straitened,  must  be  straitened  in  ourselves. 
Let  this  essential  difiereuce  be  kept  in  view,  while  we 
still  distinctly  recognize  the  real  similarity  between 
the  cases  in  the  long-continued  undisturbed  enjoyment 
of  exclusive  privileges. 

2.  The  other  points  of  resemblance,  which  I  shall 
advert  to,  all  arise  from  that  just  mentioned,  as  its 
more  remote  or  proximate  eftects.  And  in  the  next 
place  I  may  specify  the  influence  of  long-continued 
and  exclusive  privileges  on  the  opinions,  the  doctrinal 
belief,  of  those  enjoying  them.  It  is  curious,  yet 
melancholy,  to  observe  with  what  facility  advantages 
possessed  by  a  few  for  the  good  of  the  many  may 
come  to  be  regarded  as  prerogatives  belonging  to  the 
few,  to  the  entire  exckision  of  the  many.  Of  this 
fatal  tendency  to  abuse,  the  rise  of  all  despotic  power 
is  an  illustration.  It  was  never  more  remarkably  ex- 
emplified, however,  than  in  the  case  before  us,  that 
of  a  particular  people,  made  the  sole  depository  of  the 
truth  and  of  the  promises  of  mercy,  for  a  limited 
time,  with  a  view  to  their  general  diffusion  afterwards, 
and  seduced  by  the  very  possession  of  this  glori- 
ous trust,  first  into  forgetfulness,  then  into  ignorance, 
and  then  into  denial,  of  the  very  end  for  which  it  was 
created.  That  this  perversion  was  facilitated  by  the 
peculiar  institutions  which  were  necessary  to  secure 
the  purpose  of  the  temporary  system,  cannot  be  de- 
nied. But  this  efiect  of  the  Mosaic  institutions  must 
be  carefully  distinguished  from  their  legitimate  design 
and  tendency.    With  all  their  restrictions  and  exclu- 


ACTS  28,  28.  287 

give  regulations,  tliey  were  not  intended  to  create  or 
foster  a  contracted  nationality  and  a  contemj)t  or 
hatred  of  mankind.  This  might  be  presumed  from 
the  divine  authority  by  which  they  were  established. 

It  may  be  more  certainly  inferred  from  many  in- 
timations in  the  law  itself,  and  still  more  clearly  read 
in  the  discourses  of  the  Prophets,  its  inspired  expound- 
ers. One  grand  design  of  the  prophetic  office  was, 
to  guard  the  institutions  of  the  law  against  abuse,  and 
to  recall  the  people  from  the  gross  corruptions  which 
its  outward  forms  were  apt  to  generate  to  more  en- 
larged and  spiritual  views.  A  single  instance  of  this 
general  fact,  is  the  prophetic  exposition  of  the  sacrifi- 
cial system,  equally  distant  from  fanatical  rejection  of 
appointed  rites  and  from  superstitious  worship  of  the 
rites  themselves.  Tlie  very  terms  of  these  inspired 
interpretations  seem  to  show,  not  only  that  they  were 
required,  but  that,  with  respect  to  many,  and  perhaps 
to  most,  they  were  without  effect  except  to  blind  and 
harden.  The  great  mass  of  the  people,  far  from  priz- 
ing their  peculiar  and  distinguishing  advantages,  as 
present  or  prospective  means  of  general  good,  valued 
them  only  for  their  own  sake,  and  by  so  doing  showed 
that  they  mistook  their  very  nature,  and  instead  of 
deriving  from  them  an  exclusive  benefit,  were  utterly 
incapable  of  deriving  any  benefit  at  all. 

This  cardinal  error,  as  to  the  very  purpose  of  the 
system  under  which  they  lived,  could  not  fail  to  pro- 
duce a  general  distortion  in  the  doctrinal  views  of 
those  who  held  it.  Tliey  who  did  not  know,  or  could 
not  be  persuaded,  that  "  the  law  must  go  forth  from 
Zion,  and  the  word   of  the  Lord  from   Jerusalem," 


28S  SERMONS. 

could  never  be  expected  to  appreciate  the  truth,  that 
the  law  of  the  Lord  is  perfect,  converting  the  soul, 
and  his  testimony  sure,  making  wise  the  simple.  They 
who  believed  that  the  truth  or  mercy  of  Jehovah  ex- 
isted for  themselves  alone,  could  surely  never  have 
obtained  a  glimpse  of  what  his  truth  and  mercy  are. 
Such  was  the  doctrinal  eifect  produced  upon  the  an- 
cient Jews  by  their  long-continued  and  exclusive 
jjrivileges. 

Now  its  tendency  to  this  result,  was  not  peculiar 
to  the  ancient  world  or  to  the  house  of  Israel.  It  may 
exist  and  operate  in  us,  and  with  a  fearful  force,  pro- 
portioned to  the  magnitude  of  our  advantages.  If 
they,  with  an  unfinished  revelation  and  a  heavy  cere- 
monial yoke  upon  their  necks,  could  dream  of  an  ex- 
clusive right  to  God's  compassions,  what  may  not  we, 
without  preventing  grace,  infer  from  our  unclouded 
light  and  our  unshackled  freedom?  And  if  this 
grand  error  had  a  tendency  to  vitiate  their  whole 
view  of  divine  truth,  what  security  have  we  that  an 
analogous  eficct  may  not  be  realized  in  our  experi- 
ence ?  Here,  then,  to  say  the  least,  there  is  a  possi- 
ble, if  not  an  actual  resemblance  between  us  and 
them.  Because  they  were  favoured,  for  a  time,  with 
an  exclusive  revelation,  they  forgot  the  very  end  for 
which  they  had  received  it,  and  forgetting  this,  were 
naturally  led  to  take  distorted  views  of  that  religion 
which  they  thus  regarded  as  exclusively  their  own  for- 
ever. So  may  wc^  perhaps  I  ought  to  say,  so  have  we 
reaped  precisely  the  same  fruit  from  precisely  the  same 
seed  so  far  as  we  have  sown  it. 

3.  This  view  of  the  matter  maybe  rendered  clearer 


ACTS  28,  28.  289 

by  selecting  from  tlie  whole  mass  of  opinions  tlius  in- 
juriously affected  by  the  culpable  abuse  of  long-con- 
tinued and  exclusive  privileges,  one  or  two  peculiarly 
important  and  peculiarly  conspicuous  m.  the  case  be- 
fore us.  Take  for  example  the  great  doctrine  which 
divided  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  from  his  Jewish 
hearers,  at  the  interesting  juncture  when  they  went 
their  way  after  Paul  had  spoken  to  them  "  one  word." 
What  was  the  relative  position  of  the  parties  ?  Com- 
mon to  both  was  a  professed  belief  in  Moses  and  the 
Prophets,  and  in  the  promises  of  Messiah  as  the  Sa- 
viour of  his  people.  But  they  fatally  diverge  at  an 
essential  point.  Paul  believes  that  the  Messiah  has 
already  come,  and  that  Jesus  of  IS'azareth  is  he,  and 
as  a  necessary  consequence,  that  the  restrictions  of  the 
old  economy  are  at  an  end,  and  the  diffusion  of  the 
true  religion  through  the  world  the  first  great  duty 
of  God's  people.  They,  on  the  contrary,  regard  the 
advent  of  Messiah  as  still  future,  and  the  barrier 
between  Jews  and  Gentiles  as  still  standing.  The 
connexion  of  these  doctrines  in  their  several  creeds  is 
not  fortuitous.  It  was  because  Paul  believed  in  the 
Messiahship  of  Christ  that  he  believed  in  the  necessity 
and  present  duty  of  extending  the  blessings  of  the 
true  religion  to  the  Gentiles  no  less  than  the  Jews. 
Believing,  as  his  countrymen  at  Rome  did,  that 
Messiah  had  not  come,  they  were  consistent  in  believ- 
ing also  that  the  old  restrictive  system  was  still  valid 
and  still  binding.  I  say  they  were  consistent,  not 
that  they  were  right,  or  even  excusable,  in  so  believ- 
ing. Their  consistency  was  nothing  but  consistency 
in  error,  error  sinful  in  its  origin  and  fatal  in  its  issue, 
>roL.  I. — 13 


290  SERMONS. 

Tbeir  mistake  was  not  merely  ore  of  chronology.  It 
was  not  that  they  put  the  date  of  the  Messiah's  ad- 
vent too  low  down.  Their  rejection  of  Christ  shows 
tliat  they  erred  not  only  as  to  the  fulfilment  of  the 
promise,  but  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  promise  itself. 
Their  expectation  was  not  realized  because  it  was  a 
false  one.  They  had  corrupted  the  very  doctrine  of 
salvation,  upon  which  all  depends.  They  looked  for 
a  Saviour  who  had  never  been  promised,  and  could 
never  come.  Instead  of  one  who  should  destroy  all 
national  restrictions,  they  expected  a  national  deliver- 
er, conqneror,  and  king.  This  dream  of  national  ad- 
vancement could  be  verified  only  at  the  cost  of  other 
nations.  Their  mistake  as  to  the  Messiah,  therefore, 
tended  directly  to  cherish  a  spirit  of  national  exclusive- 
ness,  and  to  suppress  all  rising  of  a  catholic  charity. 
And  thus  appears  the  truth  of  the  position,  that  the 
doctrinal  error  of  the  unbelieving  Jews,  with  respect 
to  the  Messiah,  and  their  practical  error  with  respect 
to  the  Gentiles,  were  as  really  and  closely  connected 
as  Paul's  doctrine  with  respect  to  the  Messiahship  of 
Christ,  and  his  practice  with  respect  to  the  conversion 
of  the  world. 

And  the  same  connexion  still  exists  and  will  be- 
tray itself  between  a  Jewish  doctrine  and  a  Jewish 
practice.  For,  although  it  is  impossible  that  any 
Christian,  even  one  by  mere  intellectual  conviction, 
should  embrace  the  very  error  of  the  old  Jews  as  to 
the  Messiah's  kingdom  ;  it  is  altogether  possible  and 
easy  to  embrace  one  of  a  similar  description,  by  un- 
worthy and  inadequate  conceptions  of  the  Christian 
system,  as  designed  and  suited  for  a  universal  faith, 


ACTS  28,  28.  291 

as  well  witli  respect  to  its  doctrines  as  its  institutions. 
There  is  no  danger  of  our  tliinking  that  Christ  came 
to  be  a  "vvorldlj  conqueror  and  not  a  Saviour,  but 
there  is  great  danger  of  our  thinking,  or  at  least  of 
our  acting,  as  if  we  thought  that  he  came  to  save  us^ 
and  to  secure  us  in  the  undisturbed  enjoyment  of  our 
temporal  and  spiritual  comforts,  and  that  the  rest  of 
the  world  must  be  .consigned  to  his  uncovenanted 
mercy.  There  is  great  danger  of  our  looking  through 
the  wrong  end  of  the  telescope,  and  seeing  that  di- 
minished which  we  ought  to  have  seen  magnified,  the 
world  reduced  to  a  nut-shell,  and  our  own  house  or 
village  swelled  into  a  world.  There  is  great  danger 
of  our  being  taught  and  teaching  others  this  great 
doctrine  as  some  children  learn  geography,  beginning 
at  the  spot  on  which  they  stand,  and  by  degrees  en- 
larging their  horizon  till  they  take  in  a  whole  country, 
state,  or  hemisphere,  and  at  the  last  the  world  itself. 
This  lesson  in  geography  the  church  has  long  been 
learning,  but  has  stuck  fast  in  the  elements.  In  order 
to  describe  the  larger  circle,  we  must  learn  to  reverse 
the  process,  and  begin  as  the  apostles  did  with  the 
idea  of  a  world  to  be  converted,  and  from  this  descend 
to  the  particulars  included.  There  are  great  advan- 
tages, no  doubt,  in  rising  from  particulars  to  gen- 
erals, and  in  making  home  the  starting  point  of  dis- 
tant operations. 

But  however  necessary  this  may  be  in  practice,  it 
is  well  in  theory  at  least  to  take  the  other  course,  and 
to  begin  at  the  beginning,  i.  e.  where  the  apostolic 
preachers  set  tlie  ball  in  motion,  who,  although  they 
obeyed  their  Lord's  commandment  by  beginning  at 


292  SERMONS. 

Jerusalem,  were  careful  not  to  end  there,  like  the 
eliarit  J  of  those  who  in  their  zeal  for  the  maxim,  that 
charity  begins  at  home,  not  unfrequently  forget  to 
let  their  own  begin  at  all.  This  preposterous  inver- 
sion of  the  grand  design  of  Christianity,  by  putting 
first  what  ought  to  be  put  next,  is  a  doctrinal  mistake 
to  which  the  church  is  not  a  stranger,  and  which  cer- 
tainly bears  some  resemblance ;  although  far  from 
coinciding  wholly,  or  at  all,  in  its  external  form,  with 
that  of  the  old  Jews  in  relation  to  the  kingdom  of 
Messiah,  And  with  this  resemblance  in  the  causes, 
we  need  scarcely  be  surprised  at  the  analogy  of  their 
effects,  or  wonder  that  a  Jewish  spirit  should  produce 
a  Jewish  practice.  If  the  unbelieving  Jews  of  old 
were  led  by  false  ideas  of  the  Messiah  and  his  king- 
dom, to  a  spurious  morality,  an  outside  holiness,  a 
voluntary  humility,  and  will  worship,  a  deification  of 
the  outward  and  material,  and  a  laborious  groping 
in  the  darkness  and  the  dust  of  mere  observance,  to 
the  neglect  of  the  rain  and  sunshine  and  refreshing 
airs  of  genuine  religion,  why  should  it  be  thought  in- 
credible that  kindred  errors  among  us  may  lead  to 
the  exchange  of  spiritual  life  for  dead  formality,  fac- 
titious morals,  and  a  senseless  trifle-worship  ?  Would 
it  in  fact  be  extravagant  to  state  it  as  a  lesson  of  our 
own  experience,  that  a  similar  contraction  of  the 
views  and  feelings  has  been  actually  found  to  produce 
a  similar  deterioration  ;  that  the  truth  has  not  been 
kept  most  pure  by  those  who  kept  it  to  themselves ; 
that  the  habit  of  leaving  out  of  view  the  expansive 
nature  and  design  of  Christianity  has  sometimes  been 
coincident  with  that  of  fjutting  mere  conventional 


ACTS  28,  25.  293 

arrangements  in  tlie  place  of  rital  principles  and  ever- 
lasting truths  ? 

But  it  is  not  on  this  general  deterioration  of  the 
religions  life,  however  real  and  deplorable,  that  we 
are  led  to  dwell  at  present,  as  the  most  important 
practical  effect  of  long-continued  and  exclusive  privi- 
leges, and  of  the  errors  which  they  tend  to  generate  ; 
for  in  addition  to  all  this,  or  in  the  midst  of  it,  there 
rises  up,  like  a  colossus,  one  practical  abuse  which 
may,  at  least  for  this  time,  be  allowed  to  overshadow 
all  the  rest.  Besides  the  influence  exerted  by  this 
error  of  the  Jews,  upon  themselves,  whether  doctrinal, 
moral,  spiritual,  or  ecclesiastical,  it  led,  as  we  have 
seen,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  dispensation, 
to  a  practical  denial  of  the  very  end  for  which  the  old 
theocracy  existed,  and  a  consequent  refusal  to  extend 
the  true  religion  to  the  Gentiles,  thus  converting  their 
own  boasted  and  adored  distinctions  into  a  mere  his- 
torical enigma,  to  perplex  the  generations  that  should 
follow,  by  exhibiting  the  strange  sight  of  a  people 
created  to  save  the  world,  and  yet  fondly  dreaming 
to  be  saved  alone !  How  far  it  is  possible  for  us  to 
occupy  the  same  position  before  men  and  angels,  must 
depend  upon  the  sameness  of  our  opportunities  and 
consequent  responsibilities,  when  tried  by  the  avowed 
rule  of  the  divine  administration,  that  of  those  who 
have  much,  much  will  be  required,  and  the  cardinal 
principle  of  Christian  charity,  freely  ye  have  received, 
freely  give! 

That  a  marked  diversity  exists  between  the  situa- 
tion of  the  Jews  and  ours,  we  have  seen  already.  But 
let  it  be  remembered,  that  all  the  difference  is  in  our 


294  SEEMONS. 

favour.  If  tlie  Jews,  even  while  they  were  sechided 
from  the  Gentiles  by  divine  authority,  were  bound  to 
keep  their  e3'e  upon  the  great  ulterior  end  of  that  se- 
clusion, and  to  cherish  feehngs  in  accordance  with 
it,  how  much  more  does  this  same  obligation  rest  on 
us,  Avho  have  no  external  disadvantages  to  hinder  its 
discharge.  The  Christian  world,  or,  if  you  please, 
the  reformed  part  of  Christendom,  are  not  intrust- 
ed with  the  oracles  of  God  as  an  exclusive  deposit, 
even  for  a  time.  We  have  them  that  we  may  diffuse 
them.  There  are  no  walls  built  by  a  divine  hand 
around  us,  for  whose  fall  we  must  wait  before  we  go 
unto  the  Gentiles.  The  very  dust  and  rubbish  of 
those  old  barriers  have  long  since  disappeared.  A 
great  and  effectual  door  into  the  heathen  world  is 
opened,  and  the  voice  of  God  is  calling  us  to  enter  it. 
We  have  no  doubts  to  solve,  and  no  disputes  to  settle 
— as  to  the  fact  of  the  Messiah's  advent — as  to  the 
question  whether  Jesus  Christ  is  he.  We  have  no  as- 
sociations with  the  old  economy,  or  habits  acquired 
under  it,  to  restrain  our  feelings  or  impede  our  move- 
ments, even  after  the  judgment  and  the  conscience 
are  convinced.  Every  thing,  both  at  home  and  abroad 
— in  the  teachings  of  God's  word,  and  in  the  leadings 
of  his  providence — in  the  condition  of  the  heathen 
and  our  own — makes  us  as  free  to  think  and  act  for 
their  conversion,  as  the  old  Je-w^  were  paralyzed  and 
crippled  with  respect  to  it.  And  yet,  with  all  this 
difference  in  our  favour,  may  we  not  be  still  too  Jew- 
ish in  our  spirit  and  our  conduct,  with  respect  to  those 
less  favoured  than  ourselves?  The  gospel  has  indeed 
abolished  national  distinctions,  but  have  we  consent- 


ACTS  23,  28.  295 

ed  to  tlieir  abolition  ?  The  old  middle  walls  of  parti- 
tion have  fallen  at  the  blast  of  the  trumpet,  but  may 
we  not  rear  up  others  in  their  stead  ?  and,  if  so,  we 
may  imprecate  a  curse  upon  ourselves,  like  that  pro- 
nounced upon  him  who  should  rebuild  the  walls  of 
Jericho. 

This  leads  me,  in  the  last  place,  to  consider 
the  resemblance  which  may  possibly  exist  between 
the  cases,  with  respect  to  providential  retributions. 
We  have  seen  the  effects  produced  by  these  errors 
on  the  doctrinal  views,  the  afi'ections,  and  the  lives  of 
the  anti-christian  Jews,  and,  through  their  neglect, 
on  the  condition  of  the  world.  These  results  they 
may  have  partially  foreseen,  and  deliberately  ven- 
tured on.  But  there  were  others  which  they  dreamt 
not  of,  and  which  were,  nevertheless,  fixed  in  the  di- 
vine determination.  AVhat  means  that  solemn  and 
repeated  declaration  of  the  great  apostle,  that  he  turns 
away  from  the  Jews  to  the  Gentiles  ?  Does  it  mean 
merely  that  his  personal  ministry  should  now  take 
that  direction?  There  is  evidently  more,  far  more, 
implied.  Does  it  mean  that  the  Gentiles  should,  in  spite 
of  Jewish  prejudice  and  bigotry,  become  partakers  of 
their  once  exclusive  privileges,  or  rather,  of  others  far 
superior?  Even  this  is  not  enough.  There  is  an 
evident  allusion,  not  only  to  a  change,  but  to  an  in- 
terchange of  character  and  state — not  only  to  the 
grafting  in  of  foreign  branches,  but  to  the  excision  of 
the  native  boughs — not  only  to  the  culture  of  the 
desert,  but  to  the  desolation  of  the  vineyard.  "  Is  it 
not  yet  a  very  little  while,"  said  Isaiah,  in  prophetic 
anticipation  of  this  very  change,  "is  it  not  yet  a  very 


296  SERMONS. 

little  while,  and  Lebanon  shall  be  turned  into  a  fruitful 
field,  and  the  fruitful  field  shall  be  reckoned  as  a 
forest?"  Had  this  change  literally  taken  place,  it 
could  not  have  been  more  complete  or  striking,  than 
that  which  has  been  wrought  in  the  relative  condition 
of  the  Jews  and  Gentiles.  Left  to  his  cherished 
notions  of  hereditary  sanctity  and  safety,  and  his 
dreams  of  a  Messiah  yet  to  come,  Israel  has  vanished 
from  his  place  among  the  living,  to  haunt  the  nations 
as  the  restless  ghost  of  a  departed  people,  or  to  glide 
about  the  graveyard  where  his  hopes  lie  buried,  wdiile 
the  dry  bones  of  many  nations,  who  appeared  to 
slumber  without  hope,  have  been  raised  again  and 
clothed  with  flesh,  and  new  life  breathed  into  their  res- 
urrection-bodies. They  that  dwelt  in  the  dust  awake, 
and  the  dew  of  God  is  as  the  dew  of  herbs,  and  the 
earth  casts  forth  her  dead ! 

But  where  are  they  who  once  monopolized  the 
promises,  and  held  fast,  with  a  niggard  grasp,  the  keys 
of  heaven  ?  "Were  it  not  for  prophecies  still  awaiting 
their  fulfilment,  we  might  well  say,  in  the  words  of 
the  same  prophet,  "  they  are  dead,  they  shall  not  live 
— they  are  deceased,  they  shall  not  arise — tliou  hast 
visited  and  destroyed  them,  and  made  all  their 
memory  to  perish.  Behold  the  goodness  and  severity 
of  God !  Behold  the  vision  of  the  Prophet  verified ! 
Lebanon  has  long  since  become  a  fruitful  field,  and 
the  fruitful  field  for  ages  reckoned  as  a  forest! 

But  how  shall  I  venture  to  present  the  other  side 
of  this  same  picture,  or  to  bring  ourselves  into  com- 
parison with  Israel  as  I  have  just  described  him? 
Without  pretending  to  decide  what  weight  is  due  to 


ACTS  28,  28.  297 

such  analogies,  we  can  scarcely  shut  our  eyes  to  the 
analogy  itself,  or  fail  to  see  that  the  comparison 
already  pushed  so  far,  admits,  at  least,  of  an  ideal  con- 
summation. We  are  all  disposed,  as  individuals  and 
nations,  to  exempt  ourselves  from  the  operation  of 
the  rules  which  we  apply  to  others.  We  can  look  at 
the  vicissitudes  of  other  times,  or  of  other  subjects  in 
our  own,  without  imagining  that  we  or  ours  may  bo 
subjected  to  the  same  great  providential  law.  What 
the  heathen  called  the  wheel  of  fortune,  we  may  call 
the  wheel  of  providence.  However  imperceptible  it 
may  be  on  a  small  scale  or  within  a  narrow  com- 
pass, it  is  impossible  to  take  large  views  of  human 
history,  without  perceiving  that  its  processes  are 
extensively,  not  to  say  uniformly,  marked  by  alterna- 
tion. We  may  leave  altogether  out  of  view  the  ap- 
plication of  this  statement  to  the  case  of  individuals 
and  families.  We  may  pass  lightly  over  those  vicis- 
situdes of  nations  which  have  ever  been  the  trite 
theme  of  declamatory  moralizers ;  by  far  the  most 
remarkable  of  which  is  that  presented  by  the  contrast 
of  what  Greece  and  Egypt  were  to  the  ancient  world, 
with  what  they  are  to  us. 

Let  us  dwell,  for  an  instant,  on  the  map  of  Christen- 
dom, as  it  is  and  as  it  was — as  it  was  at  the  death  of 
the  last  apostle,  or  even  1400  years  ago — ^looking  par- 
ticularly at  the  western  coast  of  Asia  Minor  and  the 
northern  coast  of  Asia — comparing  their  innumerable 
churches  and  multitudinous  councils,  not  only  with 
their  present  desolation,  but  with  the  actual  state 
of  Christianity  in  Britain  and  in  Scandinavia;  and 
even  in  these  nameless  climes  of  which  a  Plato  may 

VOL.  I.— 13* 


298  SERMONS. 

have    drecamed,   and   which    Phenicians   may   nave 
visited,   but   which    have  neither  name  nor  place 
npon    the    chart   of  ancient   knowledge,    is    it   cer- 
tain  that  this  process  of  rotation  has   been  finally 
arrested?  or  that   its   future  evolutions  will  be  left 
to  the  control  of  what  we   call  fortuitous   or  acci- 
dental causes,  which  can  neither  be  computed  nor  ac- 
counted for  ?     Is  it  not  possible,  to  say  the  least,  that 
the  vicissitudes  yet   future   may  sustain   the  same 
relation  to  extraordinary  privilege  and  culpable  abuee 
of  it,  as  those  which  are  already  past,  and  some  of 
which  we  have  been  tracing  ?     In  a  word,  is  it  too 
much  to  suppose  that  the  prophetic  vision  may  again 
be  realized — another  Lebanon  become  a  fruitful  field, 
and  fields  now  fruitful  be  transformed  into  a  silent 
and  forsaken  forest  ?     What  a  view  does  this  imagina- 
tion, if  it  be  no  more,  open  far  and  wide  before  us! 
What  a  change  of  absolute  condition  and  of  mutual 
relations !     AVhat  a  levelling  of  hills  and  filling  up  of 
valleys !     What   fantastic   confusion    in  the   use   of 
names,  and  in  the  associations  coupled  with  them ! 
How  strange   may  it  yet  seem,  to  remember  that 
Britain  once  ruled  India — that  America  once  talked 
or  dreamed  of  civilizing  Africa — that  Australia  and 
the  isles  of  the  Pacific  once  invited  missionary  labour 
from  the  northern  continents,  instead  of  lavishing  it 
on   them.     Should  this  ever  become  more  than  an 
ideal  picture,  he  who  surveys  it,  may  retrace  the 
course  of  time,  as  we  have  done,  and,  as  he  speculates 
on  causes  and  efi'ects,  and  takes  his  stand  beside  the 
turning  point,  the  critical  conjuncture,  where  the  tide 
of  our  prosperity  began  to  ebb— he  may  imagine  that 


ACTS  23,  28.  299 

he  sees  Paul  stanjling,  as  lie  stood  in  his  own  hired 
house  at  Rome,  and  stretching  out  his  arms  towards 
the  perishing  nations,  and  saying  to  the  Christian 
Jews  of  this  day,  as  he  said  to  the  Israelites  of  that, 
"  Be  it  known  unto  you,  therefore,  that  the  salvation 
of  God  is  sent  unto  the  Gentiles,  and  that  they  will 
hear  it." 

I  am  far  from  venturing  or  wishing  to  put  such  an- 
ticipations in  the  place  of  higher  motives,  and  espe- 
cially of  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  as  stimulants 
to  Christian  eifort.  But  if  the  bare  imagination  of 
such  changes  rouses  us,  and  tends,  in  any  measure,  to 
enlarge  and  elevate  our  views  beyond  the  dull  routine 
of  ordinary  duties  and  of  selfish  interests,  it  cannot 
hurt  us,  and  may  do  us  good.  I  see  not,  therefore, 
why  we  should  refuse  to  apply  the  last  words  of  the 
text  to  ourselves,  in  the  way  of  warning.  There  is 
no  room  here  for  invidious  distinctions.  None  can 
censure  others  upon  this  point  without  censuring 
themselves.  If  we  are  conscious  of  inadequate  exer- 
tions and  of  cold  affections  in  this  great  cause,  let  us 
think  of  Israel  according  to  the  flesh,  and  of  what  he 
was  and  what  he  is— remember  that  such  revolutions 
are  still  possible — that  if  we  do  not  value  Cliristianity 
enough  to  share  it  with  the  heathen,  they  may  yet 
become  possessed  of  it  at  our  expense — nay,  that  while 
the  glorious  gospel  is  so  commonly  neglected  and  de- 
spised among  ourselves,  the  word  of  this  salvation  is 
already  sent  unto  the  Gentiles,  and  that  they  will 
hear  it — are  hearing  it. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  the  way  of  warning,  that  the 
words  may  be  applied.     They  are  also  full  of  conso- 


300  SERMONS. 

lation  and  encouragement — of  ccnsolation  for  tlio 
eyes  that  weep  and  the  hearts  that  bleed  over  our 
.  own  spiritual  desolations.  Such,  with  all  their  zeal 
for  God,  are  prone  to  walk  by  sight  and  not  by  faith, 
and  to  let  their  hopes  and  fears  be  too  much  governed 
by  appearances.  They  are  sometimes  tempted  by  a 
spiritual  pride,  only  more  dangerous  because  insidi- 
ous and  unsuspected,  to  say,  with  the  desponding 
prophet  of  old,  "I  have  been  very  jealous  for  the 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  for  the  children  of  Israel  have 
forsaken  thy  covenant,  and  I,  even  I  alone,  am  left." 
For  such  grief,  and  the  unbelieving  fears  that  breed 
it,  an  appropriate  remedy  is  furnished  by  the  doctrine 
"  that  God  has  visited  the  Gentiles,  to  take  out  of 
them  a  people  for  his  name ;"  and  that,  although  every 
ear  and  heart  in  Christendom  should  be  henceforth 
and  forever  stopped  against  the  word  of  life,  "the 
salvation  of  God  is  sent  unto  the  Gentiles,  and 
they  will  hear  it." 

But  the  highest,  best,  and  most  important  appli- 
cation of  the  words  is  yet  to  come.  It  is  neither  right 
nor  salutary  to  dismiss  this  subject,  with  the  tones  of 
warning,  and  reproof,  or  even  consolation,  ringing  in 
our  ears.  We  sometimes  lose  as  much  by  excessive 
or  unreasonable  lamentation  over  our  defects  and 
failures  as  by  sheer  neglect  and  apathy.  The  world 
is  not  to  be  converted,  nor  our  quota  of  the  work  con- 
tributed, by  passionate  regrets  that  it  is  not  yet  done. 
The  only  profitable  sorrow  in  such  cases  is  that  which, 
like  the  sorrow  of  repentance,  ends  in  joy,  or  leads  to 
it,  by  pi'ompting  to  exertion.  Our  grief,  too,  must  be 
mixed  with  gratitude,  or  it  is  selfish.     Our  paramount 


ACTS  28,  28.  301 

duty,  in  contemplation  of  the  future  and  the  past,  is 
neither  to  presume  nor  to  despair,  but  to  thank  God 
and  take  courage.  To  a  soul  thus  humbled  and  yet 
excited,  the  tone  of  this  scripture  is  encouraging,  and 
I  may  even  say  exhilarating.  For  the  truths  of  which 
it  testifies  are  these — that  this  work  is  the  work  of 
God — that  the  salvation  which  we  preach  is  his — that 
he  has  sent  it,  yes,  and  sent  it  to  the  Gentiles — and 
that  they  will  hear  it.  And  though  among  them,  as 
among  ourselves,  many  be  called  and  few  chosen, 
still  this  gospel  of  the  kingdom  must  be  preached  in 
all  the  world,  as  a  witness  to  all  nations,  before  the 
end  come.  As  Christ  died,  not  for  a  nation  but  a 
world,  so  all  kindreds,  tongues,  and  peoples,  must  be 
represented  in  that  great  assembly,  to  be  gathered  on 
Mount  Zion,  when  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  shall 
have  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  his 
Christ.  As  a  necessary  means  to  this  appointed  end, 
and  as  a  pledge  of  its  accomplishment,  in  spite  of  evil 
omens  and  discouraging  appearances,  be  it  known 
unto  you,  you  who  long  for  it  and  hasten  towards  it, 
that  "the  word  of  this  salvation,"  "the  salvation  of 
God,"  is  sent  unto  the  Gentiles,  and  that  they  will 
hear  it. 


XVI. 

1  Peter  1,  5. — Kept  by  the  power  of  God  through  faitli  unto  sal- 
Tation. 

This  is  only  a  fragment  of  a  sentence,  occurring  in 
the  midst  of  one  of  the  most  pregnant  passages  in 
the  Hew  Testament — one  of  the  richest  and  most 
copious  descriptions  of  the  fruits  of  saving  grace,  and 
its  effects  upon  its  subjects.  But,  liowever  undesira- 
ble it  may  be  in  general  to  insulate  the  doctrines  of 
the  Bible,  and  detach  them  from  the  context,  upon 
which  their  just  interpretation  must  depend,  there  is 
less  objection  here,  because  the  clause  selected,  though 
really  one  link  in  a  long  chain,  is  like  a  literal  link, 
complete  in  itself,  as  propounding  a  great  doctrine  of 
the  Christian  system,  which  admits  of  being  separate- 
ly looked  at,  and,  indeed,  must  be  so  viewed,  if  we 
would  see  it  distinctly,  as  the  field  of  vision  opened  in 
the  context  is  too  vast  to  be  embraced  at  one  view, 
without  painful  effort  and  injurious  confusion.  With- 
drawing our  eyes,  then,  from  the  splendid  but  con- 
founding spectacle  presented  in  this  passage,  as  a 
whole,  of  the  divine  love  to  believers,  and  its  influ- 
ence upon  them,  let  us  fix  our  attention,  for  a  short 
time,  on  the  apostolical  description  of  them,  as  a  class, 


1  PETER  1,  5.  303 

"  kept  by  tlie  power  of  God  through,  faith  unto  salva- 
tion." 

The  odium  theologicum  is  now  a  proverb.  The 
admiring  crj  of  the  old  heathen — "See  how  these 
Christians  love  another,"  is  supplanted  by  the  sneer 
of  the  modern  infidel — "  See  how  these  theologians 
hate  one  anotlier."  As  usual,  in  the  judgments  of  the^ 
world  upon  the  Church,  there  is  here  a  basis  or  sub- 
stratum of  truth,  with  a  lofty  superstructure  of  injus- 
tice and  exaggeration.  That  earnest  contention  for 
the  trutli,  once  delivered  to  the  saints,  should  be 
mixed  with  angry  passions,  is  undoubtedly  a  fruit  of 
human  error  and  corruption.  But  that  men  should 
be  most  ardent  and  exacting,  in  relation  to  religious 
doctrines,  and  especially  the  doctrines  of  salvation,  is 
both  natural  and  rational.  To  expect  men  to  be  zeal- 
ous and  enthusiastic,  as  to  minor  matters,  as  to  ques- 
tions connected  with  their  worldly  business,  their  po- 
litical interests,  or  even  their  most  frivolous  amuse- 
ments, but  entirely  calm  and  self-possessed,  dispas- 
sionate and  even  callous,  when  the  points  at  issue 
have  respect  to  moral  duty  and  to  spiritual  truth,  to 
God's  glory  and  to  man's  salvation,  is  indirectly  to 
deny  the  value  and  importance  of  religion,  as  com- 
pared with  the  affairs  of  this  life,  or  at  least  to  ques- 
tion the  sincerity  of  those  who  give  the  former  the 
precedence.  If  such  sincerity  exists,  it  must  display 
itself  precisely  in  the  way  objected  to,  by  zeal  and 
ardor  in  defending  what  is  held  to  be  the  truth,  pre 
portioned  to  its  absolute  and  relative  importance. 
That  is  to  say,  what  men  value  most  highly,  they  not 
only  may,  but  must  defend  most   earnestly.     And 


304  SEKMONS. 

where  this  conviction  and  its  natural  effect  exist,  the 
purest  zeal  is  too  apt  to  be  mixed  with  passionate  ex- 
citement, and  contaminated  by  some  form  of  selfish 
ness. 

This  is  not  suggested  as  an  apology  for  such  un- 
hallowed mixtures,  but  simply  as  an  explanation  of 
the  fact,  that  they  occur  in  the  defence  of  great  reli- 
gious truths,  which  has  been  often  made  the  ground 
of  an  invidious  charge  against  religion  itself,  as  the 
direct  and  necessary  source  of  such  impure  excite- 
ments, whereas  it  is  only  the  occasion  of  their  rising, 
when  they  do  exist  at  all,  to  greater  heights  of  vio- 
lence, because  the  subjects  which  produce  them  are 
confessedly  the  most  important  that  can  possibly  be 
made  the  subject  of  discussion  or  dispute.  It  does 
not  follow,  because  angry  brawls,  in  private  life,  are 
sinful,  and  should  therefore  be  avoided,  that  a  man  is 
particularly  blameable  for  being  angry  in  defence  of 
those  who  are  nearest  and  dearest  to  him ;  or  that  his 
passionate  excitability  in  their  behalf  is  justly  charge- 
able on  his  affection  for  them ;  or  that  in  standing  up 
for  them  he  ought  to  be  more  cool  and  dispassionate, 
than  when  contending  for  a  stranger,  or  for  some 
trivial  and  indifferent  matter.  For  the  same  reason, 
it  is  not  so  unreasonable,  as  some  have  represented, 
that  when  Christians  lose  their  temper,  or  become  too 
ardent  in  contending  for  their  own  views,  these  weak- 
nesses should  show  themselves  especially  in  vindicat- 
ing what  they  prize  most  highly  of  religious  truth, 
against  weak  misapprehension,  artful  misrepresenta- 
tion, or  malevolent  aspersion. 

Another  fact  often  misrepresented  in  the  same 


I 

i 


1  PETER  1,  5.  305 

way,  is  the  fact  that  theological  disputes  are  often 
sharpest,  and  apparently  most  angry,  between  those 
who,  as  to  all  important  points,  except  the  one  directly 
in  debate,  are  nearest  to  each  other,  and  most  per- 
fectly agreed.  This  circumstance,  though  sometimes 
used  to  aggravate  the  alleged  tendency  of  Christianity 
itself  to  stir  up  angry  passions^  is  as  easily  accounted 
for  as  that  already  mentioned.  It  is  natural,  and  not 
at  all  irrational,  to  feel  especially  astonished  and  dis- 
pleased at  the  errors  or  the  faults  of  those  who  are  in 
other  respects  most  exempt  from  both,  because  this 
very  exemption  implies  a  degree  of  elevation  and  in- 
telligence with  which  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  partic- 
ular obliquities  of  faith  or  practice.  There  may  also 
be  included,  as  contributing  to  this  effect,  the  same 
cause,  whatever  it  may  be,  that  makes,  and  always  has 
made,  quarrels  between  near  relations  and  familiar 
friends,  proverbially  violent,  if  not  irreconcilable. 
Whether  this  be  an  effect  of  the  same  cause  already 
mentioned — an  instinctive  application  of  the  principle 
that  from  him  who  hath  much,  much  will  be  required, 
and  that  near  approximation  to  the  truth,  instead  of 
extenuating,  aggravates  the  guilt  of  any  error  still  re- 
maining, or  the  product  of  something  in  the  state  of 
the  affections,  or  their  very  nature,  which  we  cannot 
reach  by  our  analysis  or  scrutiny,  the  fact  itself  is  no 
more  strange  in  one  case  than  another,  and  can  no 
more  be  alleged  as  a  peculiar  vice  of  theological  dis- 
pute, than  of  private  and  domestic  alienations.  If  the 
heat  and  asperity  of  family  disputes  ought  to  throw 
no  discredit  on  the  family  relation,  as  intrinsically 
tending  to  foment  such  passions,  with  as  little  justice 


306  SERMONS. 

can  the  warmth  and  even  ranconr  of  religious  contro- 
versy, even  and  especially  between  parties  otherwise 
agreed,  be  justly  charged  on  Christianity  itself,  or  any 
specific  forms  of  Christian  doctrine,  as  possessing  in 
themselves,  or  imparting  to  their  votaries,  the  virus 
of  malignant  animosity  ;  but  as  the  intensity  of  feeling 
in  the  one  case  may  be  traced  to  the  very  nearness  of 
their  parties,  and  that  intimate  relation,  which  ap- 
pears to  make  it  most  deplorable,  so  in  the  other  case, 
religion  and  theology,  and  even  the  polemic  form  of 
Christianit}^,  however  vitiated  by  the  presence  of  this 
sinful  element,  is  certainly  entitled  to  the  benefit  of 
just  such  explanations  as  we  all  admit  to  be  allowa- 
ble, if  not  unavoidable,  in  matters  where  religious 
truth  is  not  concerned  at  all.  What  we  ask  for  our- 
selves and  our  religion  is  not  favour  at  the  hands  of 
men,  but  "  even-handed  justice." 

But  while  all  this  may  justly  be  alleged,  if  not  in 
vindication,  yet  at  least  in  explanation,  of  the  violence 
commonly  ascribed  to  doctrinal  disputes  between  the 
great  divisions  of  the  Christian  world,  it  still  remains 
a  lamentable  fact  that  such  alienations  should  exist, 
not  only  between  those  who  are  in  most  essential  points 
agreed,  but  in  reference  to  what  they  respectively  re- 
gard as  the  most  precious  parts  of  Christian  doctrine,  the 
very  parts  which  they  consider  as  most  intimately  inter- 
woven with  their  own  experience,  and  with  that  of  all 
believers.  That  alienations,  both  of  judgment  and  of 
feeling,  should  exist  just  here,  however  it  may  be  ex- 
plained, is  still  to  be  deplored  as  an  anomaly,  to  say 
the  least  of  it,  so  painful  and  mysterious,  that  all  af- 
fected by  it  ought  to  rejoice  even  in  the  possibility 


1  PETER  1,  5.  307 

that  it  arises  from  misapprelieiision,  and  in  all  at- 
tempts, however  feeble,  to  detect  it  in  specific  cases. 

A  striking  illustrative  example  of  these  general 
considerations  is  afi'orded  by  that  feature  of  the  Cal- 
vinistic  system,  which  is  commonly  known  as  the 
doctrine  of  final  perseverance,  as  opposed  to  that  of 
possible  defection  and  perdition  on  the  part  of  true 
believers  and  regenerated  siimers.  "While  the  former 
of  these  doctrines  has  been  cherished,  in  all  ages,  by 
a  great  body  of  professed  believers,  as  among  the 
clearest  and  most  precious  truths  of  their  religion,  it 
has  been  rejected  by  another,  not  simply  as  untrue, 
but  as  subversive  of  the  Gospel,  and  as  fraught  with 
the  most  dangerous  tendencies,  in  reference  to  per- 
sonal holiness  and  ultimate  salvation.  The  sincerity 
of  many,  upon  both  sides  of  this  question,  both  in 
general  as  Christians,  and  in  particular  as  champions 
of  the  doctrines  thus  contrasted,  cannot  be  denied 
without  denouncing  all  belief  in  testimony,  and  indeed 
in  evidence  on  moral  subjects  ;  but  this  only  makes  it 
more  desirable,  if  possible,  to  reduce  the  opposition  to 
a  mutual  misunderstanding. 

"Without  attempting  any  new  or  philosphical  so- 
lution of  this  ancient  problem,  upon  which  so  many 
mighty  minds  and  pious  hearts  have  spent  their 
strength  for  ages,  let  us  look  once  more  to  the  objec- 
tions to  this  doctrine,  as  they  seem  to  weigh  upon  the 
minds,  not  of  speculative  theologians,  but  of  practical 
experimental  Christians,  whose  belief  is  in  purpose 
and  profession,  founded  on  the  word  of  God,  and 
the  experience  of  his  people.  How  are  sucli,  in  many 
cases,  affected  by  the  doctrine  now  in  question  ? 


308  SERMONS. 

The  objections  urged  to  it  assume  a  twofold  form, 
or  may  at  least  be  readi]  j  reduced  to  two.  The  first  is, 
that  the  doctrine  is  unscriptural ;  the  second,  that  it  is 
of  evil  tendency.  On  close  inspection,  these  two  objec- 
tions will  be  found  to  be  further  reducible  to  one,  or  one 
of  them  at  least  so  dependent  on  the  other,  that  they 
cannot  be  regarded  as  entirely  distinct.  That  is  to 
say,  the  objection  to  the  doctrine  as  unscriptural,  has 
no  substantive  existence  or  foundation,  apart  from  its 
imputed  or  alleged  pernicious  tendencies  in  practice. 
It  is  not  denied,  or  cannot  be  denied,  with  any  show  of 
probability,  that  there  are  expressions  in  the  word  of 
God,  which  do  at  first  sight,  and  according  to  their 
obvious  and  superficial  import,  strongly  favor  the  ob- 
noxious doctrine.  It  is  also  certain  that  the  strong 
presumption  thus  created,  is  not  shaken,  or  at  least 
not  nullified  by  any  explicit  allegation  of  the  con- 
trary, or  by  the  clear  and  unequivocal  assertion  of 
things  plainly  incompatible  and  inconsistent  with  the 
odious  dogma  of  a  final  perseverance.  That  neither 
of  these  possible  cases  is  a  real  one — that  is  to  say, 
that  there  is  no  categorical  denial  of  this  doctrine, 
or  any  statement  absolutely  inconsistent  with  it,  is 
abundantly  clear  from  the  existence  of  so  large  and 
so  intelligent  a  class,  both  of  interpreters  and  ordina- 
ry readers,  who  are  thoroughly  persuaded  that  the 
doctrine,  far  from  being  contradicted,  is  expressly  and 
dogmatically  taught  in  Scripture.  They  may  be  mis- 
taken in  so  thinking ;  but  the  error  would  be  incon- 
ceivable if  there  were  no  ground  or  even  colour  for 
maintaining  it,  much  more  if  it  were  formally  or  cer- 
tainly condemned.    The  true  cause,  therefore,  of  the 


1  PETER  1,  5.  309 

confidence  with  which  it  is  rejected  as  unscriptural; 
must  be  its  real  or  imaginary  tendency  to  practical 
experimental  evil ;  or,  in  other  words,  it  is  believed  to 
be  unscriptural  because  it  is  believed  to  be  pernicious. 
What  appears  to  be  said  in  its  favour,  is  explained 
away,  and  what  is  adverse  to  it  is  exaggerated,  under 
the  impression  of  the  foregone  conclusion,  that  the 
doctrine  is  of  evil  tendency. 

Since,  then,  the  scriptural  objection  really  depends 
upon  the  practical  or  moral  one,  the  question  now 
arises,  what  the  latter  is,  and  wherein  it  consists  ? 
"What  is  the  evil  tendency  imputed  to  this  feared  and 
hated  doctrine,  not  by  its  sjDiteful  and  deliberate  ca- 
lumniators, but  by  its  sincere  and  honest  adversaries 
• — those  who  really  believe  that  an  opinion  so  perni- 
cious in  its  influence  on  character  and  conduct,  can- 
not be  a  doctrine  of  the  Bible  ?  When  attentively 
considered,  the  objectionable  features  of  the  doctrine 
as  sincerely  viewed  by  this  class,  may  be  said  to  be 
these  two  :  That  it  assumes  the  final  perseverance  of 
the  saints,  to  be  secured  by  a  power  inherent  in  them- 
selves, or  by  something  in  the  very  nature  of  a  saving 
change,  precluding  all  defection  as  a  sheer  impossi- 
bility, entirely  irrespective  of  the  subject's  own  reli- 
gious state  and  dispositions,  or  of  any  influence  exte- 
rior to  him,  over  and  above  the  impulse  given  at 
conversion,  or  the  vis  inerticB  of  his  new-born  nature — ■ 
a  belief  which  may  be  justly  charged  with  tending  to 
indulge  a  proud  reliance  upon  self,  and  an  habitual 
security,  alike  dishonouring  to  God  and  dangerous  to 
man. 

The  other  feature  of  this  doctrine,  as  held  by  ita 


310  SERMONS. 

opponents,  is,  that  the  only  proof  which  it  requires  of 
the  saving  change,  from  which  it  draws  its  proud  se- 
curity and  absolute  immunity  from  danger,  is  the 
consciousness  or  memory  of  inward  exercises,  not  sus- 
ceptible of  formal  proof,  and  wholly  independent  of 
the  actual  condition  of  the  subject  at  the  time  when 
he  asserts  his  claim  to  this  prerogative  or  privilege  of 
absolute  exemption  from  the  risk  or  possibility  of  a 
fall  from  grace.  Whatever  may  be  the  specific  form 
in  which  the  honest  opposition  to  this  doctrine  clothes 
itself,  and  which  may  be  indefinitely  varied  by  fortu- 
itous or  incidental  causes,  it  will  always  prove,  upon 
a  close  analysis,  or  even  an  accurate  inspection,  to  in- 
volve, as  the  essential  grounds  of  condemnation  and 
rejection,  the  two  assumptions  which  have  just  been 
stated,  as  to  an  inherent  independent  power  of  self- 
preservation,  and  the  sufiiciency  of  mere  subjective 
states  and  exercises,  to  demonstrate  the  possession  of 
that  power,  as  belonging  to  the  doctrine  of  a  final 
perseverance. 

Such  being,  then,  the  very  grounds  of  the  objection 
to  this  doctrine  as  unscriptural,  the  reasons  for  be- 
lieving that  it  cannot  be  propounded  in  the  word  of 
God,  whatever  tends  to  show  that  it  involves  no  such 
assumptions  as  are  thus  imputed  to  it,  and  then  made 
the  proofs  of  its  pernicious  tendency,  must  go  so  far 
to  clear  it  from  the  charge  of  such  a  tendency,  as  ne- 
cessarily belonging  to  it,  or  proceeding  from  it,  and 
entitle  its  defenders  to  insist  upon  the  plain  sense,  now 
no  longer  admissible,  at  least  in  this  direction,  of 
the  places  where  it  seems  to  be  expressly  taught.  To 
prove  this  negative,  although  the  burden  of  the  proof 


1  PETER  1,  5.  -  311 

might  well  be  left  to  rest  on  those  who  make  the  af- 
firmation, is  still  not  difficnlt,  and  may  indeed  be  sat- 
isfactorily done  by  an  appeal  to  any  of  the  numerous 
expressions  which  are  reckoned  by  the  champions  of 
the  doctrine  as  decisive  in  its  favour.  Such  a  proof 
may  be  deduced,  for  example,  from  the  words  of  the 
Apostle  Peter,  in  the  text,  which  has  always  been 
classed  among  the  clearest  recognitions,  if  not  among 
the  most  direct  and  formal  affirmations,  of  the  truth  in 
question. 

So  far,  then,  is  this  scripture,  as  expounded  in  our 
system,  from  referring  the  continued  safety  of  be- 
lievers to  a  power  inherent  in  themselves,  or  necessa- 
rily evolved  in  the  process  of  regeneration,  viewed  as 
a  subjective  change,  that,  while  it  clearly  and  em- 
phatically represents  them  as  securely  •  kept,  garri- 
soned, or  guarded,  as  the  military  term  in  the  original 
denotes,  suggesting  the  idea  of  complete  and  perjjet- 
ual  protection  from  the  paramount  dominion  of  their 
spiritual  enemies,  this  preservation  is  explicitly  de- 
scribed as  the  eifect  of  a  power  exterior  and  superior 
to  themselves ;  nay,  still  more  unequivocally  and 
expressly,  as  afiected  by  a  sovereign,  a  divine,  an 
almighty  agency,  "  kept  by  the  power  of  God  unto  sal- 
vation " — not  merely  capable  of  being  so  kept,  but  in 
fact,  and  actually  so  kept ;  not  as  a  peculiar  favour  in 
the  case  of  some,  but  as  a  constant  and  a  necessary 
incident  to  the  condition  of  all  true  believers ;  not  eb 
a  mere  contingency  dependent  on  the  unrevealed  de- 
sign and  will  of  God,  but  as  an  ascertained  and  veri- 
fied reality,  attested  by  experience  at  j)resent,  and 


Q12  SERMONS. 

secured  for  the  future  by  the  promised  covenant  and 
oath  of  One  who  cannot  lie. 

Of  such  a  doctrine,  where  is  the  pernicious  ten- 
dency? If  all  depends  upon  the  action  of  Omnipo- 
tence ;  if  perseverance  is  as  much  beyond  our  own 
control  as  that  original  mutation  of  our  spiritual  state 
in  which  we  are  said  to  persevere  ;  if  we  can  no  more, 
in  and  of  ourselves,  secure  our  own  continuance  in 
this  state,  than  we  could  create  it,  or  create  ourselves, 
or  than  we  could  create  a  world ; — if  this  is  our  posi- 
tion, as  defined  by  the  very  texts  from  which  we 
prove  the  doctrine  to  be  true,  "where  is  boasting 
then  ?     It  is  excluded !  " 

It  may  be  said,  however,  that  although  the  power 
which  secures  our  perseverance  is  entirely  exterior 
and  superior  to  ourselves,  and  is,  in  fact,  no  other 
than  the  sovereign  and  almightypower  of  God,  yet  if 
we  look  upon  its  exercise  as  absolutely  and  irrevoca- 
bly pledged  for  our  protection,  the  tendency  of  this 
belief  to  generate  security  and  license,  is  as  evident 
and  strong  as  if  the  power  were  inherent  in  ourselves  ; 
nay,  more  so,  since  the  power,  instead  of  being  finite, 
is  now  infinite  ;  instead  of  being  human,  is  divine ; 
instead  of  being  ours,  is  God's ;  and  yet  completely 
under  our  control.  This  specious  representation  qui- 
etly assumes  that  we  ascribe  the  perseverance  of  be- 
lievers to  an  absolute  immediate  act  of  power,  without 
the  use  of  means  or  the  prescription  of  conditions  ;  that 
God  has  irrevocably  pledged  the  exercise  of  his  om- 
nipotence to  save  from  the  very  possibility  of  falling, 
every  sinner  who  has  once  believed  and  been  con- 
verted, be  his  subsequent  experience  and  his  actual 


1  PETER  1,  5.  313 

condition  what  it  may ;  and,  as  a  necessary  conse- 
quence, tliat  he  who  once  liad  satisfying  evidence  of 
having  undergone  a  saving  change,  may  now  and 
forever  claim  tlie  covenanted  exercise  of  God's  om- 
nipotence to  save  him  even  from  the  just  and  natural 
effects  of  his  own  evident  apostasy  and  lapse  into  a 
state  of  impenitence  and  unbelief;  in  short,  that  he 
who  once  believed,  or  rather  once  believed  that  he 
believed,  will  certainly  be  "  kept  by  the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation,"  whether  now,  or  at  any  future  time, 
or  through  eternity,  be  he  a  believer  or  an  unbeliever. 
Of  such,  if  any  such  there  be,  as  live  and  die  in  this 
faith,  we  may  well  say,  in  the  words  of  an  apostle, 
"  their  damnation  slumberetli  not." 

But  see  again,  how  this  aspersion  on  the  doctrine 
in  dispute,  whether  cast  in  malice  or  in  ignorance,  is 
wiped  off,  and  its  foul  stain  utterly  effaced  forever, 
by  the  simple  but  authoritative  language  of  the  text, 
which,  so  far  from  representing  this  conservative 
agency  of  God's  grace  and  omnij)otence,  as  acting  in- 
dependently of  faith  in  the  preserved  and  persevering 
subject,  holds  up  faith  itself  as  in  a  certain  sense  the 
means  by  which  the  perseverance  is  secured,  by  which 
the  preservation  is  effected,  "  Kept  by  the  power  of 
God  through  Eaith  tjnto  Salvation." 

Now,  Faith,  as  both  the  parties  to  this  controversy 
are  agreed,  is  not  a  thing  to  be  assumed  at  pleasure 
or  at  random,  but  to  be  established  by  conclusive  ev- 
idence ;  not  that  of  consciousness  or  memory  or  fancy, 
but  of  actual  experience  and  practice.  "  Faith  with- 
out works  is  dead."  The  only  true  faith  is  the  faith 
that  "  works  by  love,"  and  "  overcomes  the  world,'' 

VOL.  I. — 14 


314  SERMONS.; 

and  " imrifies  the  heart,"  and  brings  forth  "all  the 
fruits  of  the  Spirit,"  which  are  also  the  "  fruits  meet 
for  repentance."  "  Bj  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them."  AVhere  these  fruits  are  not,  there  is  no  evi- 
dence of  faith.  "Where  faith  is  not,  there  is  no  jDledge 
of  God's  omnipotence  to  save  from  falling.  It  is  only 
those  who  have  this  faith  and  bear  this  fruit,  that 
have  a  right  to  claim  a  place  among  the  happy  souls 
who  are  "  kept  by  the  power  of  God  through  faith 
unto  salvation."  If  this  doctrine,  as  propounded  in 
this  one  text,  and  harmoniously  exhibited  in  many 
others,  and  frequently  implied  or  presupposed  where 
it  is  not  expressed,  pervading  the  whole  tissue  of  the 
system  of  salvation,  like  a  golden  thread,  not  always 
visible,  but  always  there ;  if  this  doctrine  is  perni- 
cious in  its  tendency,  then  so  is  truth,  and  holiness 
itself.  If  this  view  of  God's  sovereignty  and  man's 
dependence,  in  the  matter  of  salvation  and  of  final 
perseverance ;  if  this  view  of  the  absolute  necessity  of 
faith,  of  vital,  operative,  fruitful  faith,  as  the  only 
condition  on  which,  the  only  means  by  which,  the 
omnipotence  of  God  will  act  to  save  us  from  ajDostasy ; 
if  this  doctrine  tends  of  itself  to  Antinomian  license 
and  security,  then  out  of  the  same  fountain  may  flow 
salt  water  and  fresh — then  men  may  expect  to  gather 
grapes  of  thorns,  and  figs  of  thistles,  and  may  be  ex- 
cused for  calling  evil  good  and  good  evil,  putting 
light  for  darkness  and  darkness  for  light,  putting 
bitter  for  sweet  and  sweet  for  bitter ! 

But,  although  the  doctrine  in  itself  has  no  such 
tendency,  its  perversion  and  abuse  has.  It  becomes 
us,  therefore,  to  consider  in  conclusion  its  liability  to 


1  PETER  1,  5.  215 

such  abuse.  That  such  a  liability  exists,  is  clear  from 
the  fact  which  gave  occasion  to  this  whole  discussion 
— the  flict  that  multitudes  of  seemingly  devout  and 
humble  Christians  have  learned  to  regard  it  with  a 
holy  horror.  Erroneous  as  their  judgment  may  and 
must  be,  it  is  far  less  likely  to  have  been  derived 
from  the  weakness  of  the  proofs  by  which  the  doctrine 
is  supported,  than  from  the  lives  in  which  it  is  exem- 
plified. There  is  also  something  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  doctrine  which  exposes  it  to  misapprehension, 
not  only  on  the  part  of  its  opponents,  but  of  those  who 
plead  tor  it  and  undertake  to  act  upon  it.  It  presents, 
as  it  were,  so  many  points  of  aberration,  where  the 
mind  is  exposed  to  a  centrifugal  impetus  towards 
error.  Tliere  is  so  much  danger  of  mistake,  and  so 
much  actual  mistake,  with  respect  to  the  very  nature 
of  salvation,  as  deliverance  from  punishment  and  not 
from  sin,  and  with  respect  to  perseverance,  in  the 
very  points  which  we  have  been  considering,  so  much 
danger  of  mistake  as  to  the  power  by  which  it  is  se- 
cured, and  which  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
power  of  God  himself,  as  to  the  means  by  which  that 
power  operates,  and  whicli  is  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  faith — a  state  of  saving  faith  produced  and  per- 
petuated by  divine  grace ;  and  finally,  as  to  the  evi- 
dence that  such  a  state  exists,  which  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  holy  living  or  good  works,  in  the  highest 
and  most  scriptural  sense  of  the  expression,  there  is  so 
much  danger  of  departure  from  the  truth,  at  all  these 
points,  that  we  who  bold  the  doctrine  as  a  precious 
part  of  our  religious  faith,  and  as  one  of  the  clearest 
and  most  unambiguous  teachings  of  the  Bible,  are 


316  SERMONS. 

under  a  peculiar  obligation  to  preserve  it  from  abuse, 
not  only  by  its  enemies,  but  by  its  friends  ;  not  only 
by  others,  but  by  ourselves ;  not  only  in  our  theory, 
but  in  our  practice ;  not  only  in  the  statement  and 
defence  of  our  belief,  but  in  the  commentary  on  it 
which  is  furnished  by  our  lives.  To  this  circumspec- 
tion we  are  called  by  a  regard  to  our  own  safety, 
which  is  jeoparded  by  nothing  more  than  by  the  cul- 
pable perversion  of  the  most  important  and  most  pre- 
cious doctrines.  In  this  sense,  none  are  more  exposed 
to  danger  than  those  who  have  within  their  reach  the 
most  effective  means  of  safety.  Especially  let  us  who 
preach  the  gospel,  or  expect  to  preach  it,  see  to  it 
that  our  example  and  experience  afford  no  confirma- 
tion of  the  old  and  profound  saying :  "  Nearest  the 
Church  furthest  from  God."  We  should  also  be  in- 
duced to  use  this  caution  by  a  jealous  sensibility  in 
reference  to  the  honour  of  our  God  and  Saviour,  lest 
through  our  perversion  or  abuse  of  this  great  doctrine, 
he  should  seem  to  be  capable  of  winking  at  iniquity, 
or  even  be  a  minister  of  sin. 

And,  lastly,  we  should  be  induced  to  use  a  wise 
precaution,  for  the  sake  of  those  who  hate  the  doc- 
trine which  we  love,  as  soul-destroying  error,  lest 
their  misapprehensions  should,  through  our  unfaith- 
fulness and  indiscretion,  be  hopelessly  confirmed,  and 
their  antipathy  to  what  they  reckon  false,  embittered 
into  hatred  of  persons  who,  to  say  the  least,  are  quite 
as  likely  as  themselves  to  be  "  kept  by  the  power  of 
God  through  faith  unto  salvation !  " 


XVII. 

Titus  2,  11-15. — For  the  grace  of  God  that  bvingeth  salvation  hatb 
appeared  to  all  men,  teaching  us  that,  denying  ungodliness  and  worldly 
lusts,  we  should  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly,  in  this  prese.it 
world ;  looking  for  that  blessed  hope,  and  the  glorious  appearing  of 
the  great  God  and  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ ;  who  gave  himself  for 
us,  that  he  might  redeem  us  from  all  iniquity,  and  purify  unto  himself 
a  peculiar  people,  zealous  of  good  works.  These  things  speak,  an-d 
exhort,  and  rebukt?  with  all  authority.     Let  no  man  despise  thee. 

The  being  of  a  God,  with  all  tliat  enters  into  tliat 
conception,  being  once  established  or  assumed  as  true, 
the  grand  problem  of  humanity  is  to  determine  our 
relation  to  him  ;  not  as  creatures  merely,  for  that  is 
settled  by  the  very  conditions  of  our  being,  but  as  sin- 
ners. Sin  has  disturbed  and  revolutionized  the  mutual 
relation  between  God  and  man,  and  as  the  one  is 
entirely  dependent  on  the  other  for  his  being  and  w^ell- 
being,  the  inquiry  into  this  effect  of  sin  becomes  some- 
thing more  than  a  curious  speculation — it  becomes  a 
practical  question  of  the  highest  import,  one  of  life  and 
death.  All  other  questions,  whether  speculative  or 
practical,  are  as  nothing  until  this  is  solved.  !Not 
what  is  God,  but  what  is  God  to  us  ?  in  what  aspect 
are  we  to  behold  him  ?  as  an  absolute  sovereign,  an 
inexorable  judge,  an  irresistible  avenger,  or  as  a  Sav- 


318  SERMONS., 

iour,  a  deliverer,  3r  friend  ?  "What  have  we  to  expect 
from  liim,  wrath  or  favour  ? 

If  man  had  never  fallen,  the  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion might  have  been  readily  deduced  from  the  essen- 
tial attributes  of  the  Divine  nature,  but  the  interven- 
tion of  sin  seems  to  bring  these  into  conflict,  so  that 
what  would  otherwise  be  prompted  by  God's  good- 
ness is  forbidden  by  his  justice.  The  confusion  thus 
introduced  into  the  subject  gives  it,  when  seriously 
considered,  an  aspect  of  awful  complication  and  un- 
certainty, which  may  be  likened  to  the  struggle  be- 
tween light  and  darkness,  clouds  and  sunshine,  on  a 
doubtful  day.  That  the  sun  is  there,  no  one  can 
doubt,  nor  that  his  rays  are  bright  and  genial,  but 
between  them  and  the  eye  of  the  spectator  there  is 
something  interposed,  and  how  long  this  obstruction 
is  to  last  he  knows  not.  Upon  such  a  sky,  the  whole 
race  may  be  said  to  have  been  gazing,  with  more  or 
less  attention  and  solicitude  for  ages  after  the  fall,  as 
if  they  expected  every  moment  to  see  the  divine  coun- 
tenance revealed,  but  knew  not  whether  its  expression 
would  be  one  of  unappeased  displeasure,  or  of  grace 
and  favour. 

Tlie  great  event  in  the  history  of  fallen  man  is, 
that  it  was  the  grace  of  God  that  appeared,  not 
merely  as  benignity  in  general,  but  as  favour  to  the 
lost,  the  ruined,  the  condemned ;  not  as  an  inert 
though  friendly  disposition,  but  as  active  favour, 
saving  grace,  the  grace  that  brings  salvation  or  de- 
liverance from  loss,  from  danger,  from  actual  ruin, 
and  from  the  wrath  to  come.  Such  is  the  grace  of 
God  which  has  appeared  or  been  revealed,  and  the 


TITUS  2,  11-15.  319 

epipliany  of  wliicli  is  lierc  alleged  by  the  apostle  tc 
liave  been  voiielisafed  to  all  men  without  national  or 
other  accidental  distinctions  ;  not  to  the  Jews  or  any 
other  nation,  not  to  the  rich  or  any  other  class  ex- 
clusively, but  to  men  in  general,  to  mankind  at  large. 
That  this  is  the  true  sense  of  "  all  men  "  in  the 
text  is  clear  from  the  connection.  Li  the  foregoing 
verses,  he  had  urged  upon  servants  their  peculiar  du- 
ties, and  assigned  as  a  motive  to  fidelity,  the  honour 
which  it  would  put  upon  the  true  religion  as  revealed 
and  taught  by  God  our  Saviour.  To  some  in  their 
exclusive  pride,  both  Jews  and  Gentiles,  this  might 
seem  ridiculous ;  as  if  the  honour  of  religion  could 
depend  upon  the  conduct  of  a  slave,  and  therefore  the 
apostle  takes  occasion  to  remind  such,  that  the  mo- 
tives by  which  Christianity  operates  on  character  and 
conduct,  are  confined  to  no  one  class,  but  are  common 
to  the  human  race,  because  Christianity  itself  as  a 
remedial  system,  as  a  vehicle  by  which  the  saving 
grace  of  God  is  brought  to  us,  has  no  respect  of  per- 
sons in  the  sense  assumed,  but  has  appeared  to  all 
men  ;  or,  as  the  sentence  may  be  construed,  is  saving 
to  all  men;  that  is,  adapted  and  designed  to  save 
them  without  regard  to  difi'erence  of  rank  or  nation. 
But  as  this  "  grace  of  God  "  is  not  inert  but  active, 
so  its  efiect  upon  its  objects  is  an  active  one,  not  only 
efiicacious  in  itself,  but  such  as  to  produce  activity, 
to  make  ihein  act,  not  blindly  or  at  random,  but  in 
obedience  to  an  active  principle,  and  in  due  subjec- 
tion to  a  moral  discipline.  The  "  saving  grace  of  God 
which  has  appeared  to  all  men,"  is  described  by  tlie 
apostle  as  "  teaching  us,"  or  rather  educating,  train- 


320  SERMONS. 

ing  lis  in  sneli  a  way  as  to  secure  the  precious  iruita 
that  follow.  The  meaninnc  is  not,  as  it  mio;ht  seem  to 
a  superficial  reader,  that  the  gospel  simply  teaches 
us  that  we  ought  to  deny  ungodliness  and  so  on  ;  i.  c. 
makes  us  understand  our  obligations  so  to  do  ;  this  is 
indeed  included,  but  far  more ;  the  full  sense  of  the 
language  is,  that  Christianity  subjects  those  who  em- 
brace it  to  a  discipline,  a  systematic  training,  a  moral 
and  spiritual  education,  so  that,  as  a  natural  result,  nay 
a  necessary  consequence,  they  do  in  point  of  fact  deny 
ungodliness  and  worldly  lusts.  To  "  teach  "  men 
that  they  "  should"  do  this  is  something,  it  is  much, 
but  it  is  far  from  being  all  that  Christianity  accom- 
plishes. It  is  a  characteristic  and  essential  feature  of 
the  gospel  that  it  does  men  good  by  putting  them  to 
school,  by  making  them  disciples,  not  simply  for  the 
jDurpose  of  communicating  knowledge,  but  for  that  of 
forming  and  maturing  character  ;  for  education  in  the 
highest,  largest,  and  most  emphatic  sense. 

This  pedagogical  design  and  character  of  true  re- 
ligion is  stamped  upon  all  its  institutions,  and  legible 
even  in  its  phraseology.  It  is  not  by  an  unmeaning 
figure  of  speech,  nor  with  any  attenuation  of  the  pri- 
mary sense  of  the  expression,  that  Christians  are  con- 
tinually called  disciples,  i.  e.  learners,  pupils,  and  that 
the  ministers  of  Christ  are  spoken  of  as  teachers. 
Equally  false,  though  false  in  opposite  extremes,  is 
the  opinion  that  knowledge,  and  consequently  teach- 
ing, are  of  no  avail  in  spiritual  matters,  and  the 
opinion  that  perfect  knowledge  is  a  previous  con- 
dition of  admission  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Some 
knowledge  is  indeed  an  indispensable  pre-requisite, 


TITUS  2,  11-15.  321 

"but  woe  to  him  wlio  imagines  tliat  these  elements  of 
wisdom  are  enough,  and  that  he  needs  no  further  or 
more  complete  indoctrination.  Is  the  child  sent  to 
Bchool  because  it  knows  so  much  already,  or  because 
it  knows  so  little,  and  in  order  that  it  may  know  more  ? 
Well  in  this  sense  too,  it  may  be  said  to  all  who  seek 
admission  to  the  body  of  believers,  and  a  share  in  the 
communion  of  saints,  "  Except  ye  be  converted,  and 
become  as  little  children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven."  The  church  is  Christ's  school ; 
he  who  enters  it  must  enter  as  a  learner,  a  disciple, 
with  as  real  and  sincere  a  deference  to  his  great 
teacher  as  the  little  child  feels,  when  it  trembles  for 
the  first  time  in  the  presence  of  a  master. 

Such  submission  is  the  more  imperative  in  this 
case,  because  more  truly  than  in  any  other  case  the 
process  of  instruction  is  moral  as  well  as  intellectual ; 
it  is  not  mere  teaching,  it  is  training,  education  ;  not 
the  mere  acquisition  of  knowledge,  although  that 
does  lie  at  the  foundation,  but  the  cultivation  of  the 
powers  and  affections,  as  a  preparation  for  the  joys 
and  services  of  heaven,  as  well  as  for  the  duties  and 
the  trials  of  this  present  state.  The  "  grace  of  God  " 
which  has  appeared  as  the  only  means  and  source  of 
salvation  to  all  men,  does  not  save  them  by  a  charm 
or  by  a  demonstration,  but  by  making  them  disciples 
in  the  school  of  Christ,  by  teaching  them  and  training 
them  for  earth  and  heaven,  developing  their  faculties, 
moulding  their  affections,  forming  their  characters, 
determining  their  lives.  The  design  and  the  legiti- 
mate effect  of  this  disciplinary  process  are  distinctly 
stated  in  the  text,  with  reference  botli  to  the  present 

VOL.  I. — 14* 


322  SERMONS. 

and  the  future ;  botli  in  a  negative  and  j./Ositiye 
form. 

The  negative  design  of  all  this  training  is  that  we 
deny,  repudiate,  or  abjure  allegiance,  to  the  sinful  dis- 
positions and  affections  which  are  paramount  in  fallen 
nature,  but  the  objects  of  which  perish  in  the  using, 
being  Ihnited  to  this  world,  so  that  they  may  be  de- 
scribed as  "  worldly  lusts  "  or  desires,  and  may  be 
said,  so  far  as  they  predominate,  to  put  man  on  a 
level  with  the  brutes,  whose  highest  good  is  present 
enjoyment  of  the  lowest  kind.  By  all  who  would  be 
saved,  these  worldly,  temporal,  and  short-lived  lusts 
must  be  denied,  renounced ;  and  this  is  never  done 
without  a  simultaneous  or  previous  denial  of  ungod- 
liness, of  all  indifference  and  enmity  to  God,  which 
is  indeed  the  source  of  the  other,  for  when  human 
hearts  are  not  right  towards  God,  the  paramount  con- 
trol of  worldly  lusts  becomes  impossible.  It  is  because 
men  do  not  love  God  that  they  love  the  world  un- 
duly ;  it  is  therefore  that  the  friendship  of  the  woild 
and  that  of  God  are  represented  by  another  apostle 
as  wholly  incompatible.  To  this  denial  of  the  world 
as  our  home,  and  of  its  lusts  as  our  principles  of  ac- 
tion, Christianity  trains  us;  not  merely  informing 
us  of  what  is  wrong,  but  educating  ns  to  hate  and 
shun  it. 

This  however  is  only  the  negative  part  of  tlic  ef- 
fect produced  by  the  spiritual  discipline  to  which  we 
are  subjected  in  the  school  of  Christ.  It  has  a  posi- 
tive side  also.  It  teaches  ns  how  we  are  to  live.  It 
does  not  lose  sight  of  the  present  state  either  in  pro- 
found abstractions,  or  in  fond   anticipations   of  the 


TITUS  2,  11-15.  323 

future.  It  adapts  and  purifies  tlie  heatlieii  maxim, 
dum  vivimus  vivamus,  wliile  we  live  let  us  live  to 
some  good  purpose.  Tlie  positive  effect  of  Christian- 
ity as  a  system  of  discipline  or  training,  is  to  rectify 
the  life  in  all  its  most  momentous  aspects  and  rela- 
tions in  reference  to  ourselves,  our  neighbours,  and 
our  God.  In  reference  to  himself,  the  true  disciple  in 
this  school  is  educated  to  be  sober  or  sound-mmded  ; 
the  original  expression  denotes  sanity  as  opposed  to 
madness,  not  in  its  extreme  forms  merely,  but  in  all 
its  more  familiar  and  less  violent  gradations ;  all 
those  numberless  and  nameless  aberrations  of  the 
judgment  which  give  character  to  human  conduct, 
even  in  the  absence  of  gross  crime  or  absolute  insan- 
ity. From  these  irrational  vagaries,  true  religion,  as 
a  system  of  discipline  and  education,  tends  to  free  us, 
and  so  far  as  we  are  really  set  free,  it  is  by  this  means 
and  by  this  alone.  The  errors  thus  insensibly  cor- 
rected are  too  many  to  be  numbered  and  too  various 
to  be  classified. 

Among  the  most  important  are  those  visionary  es- 
timates of  self  and  of  the  world  by  which  the  mass  of 
men  are  led  astray  ;  those  "  strong  delusions,"  with 
respect  to  good  and  evil,  right  and  wrong,  true  and 
false,  happiness  and  misery,  which,  both  by  their  ab- 
surdity, and  by  their  ruinous  effects  fully  justify  that 
terrible  description,  "  Madness  is  in  their  hearts  while 
they  live,  and  after  that  they  go  to  the  dead."  In 
opposition  to  this  "madness,"  the  saving  grace  of 
God  trains  its  subjects  to  be  rational  or  sober,  and 
thus  in  the  highest  sense  and  measure  to  be  faithful 
to  themselves.     But  at  the  same  time  it  trains  them 


324  SERMONS. 

to  be  faithful  to  others,  to  be  just,  in  the  wide  sense 
of  the  term  ;  one  of  constant  occurrence  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  especially  in  the  Old  Testament ;  including 
all  that  one  can  owe  another;  including  therefore 
charity  and  mercy,  no  less  than  honesty  and  rigorous 
exactness  in  the  discharge  of  legal  obligations.  Jus- 
tice or  rectitude,  in  this  enlarged  and  noble  sense,  as 
opposed  to  every  form  of  selfishness,  is  no  less  really 
a  dictate  and  a  consequence  of  spiritual  training,  than 
sanity  or  soundness  of  mind,  as  opposed  to  the  chi- 
meras and  hallucinations  of  our  state  by  nature.  But 
"  soberness  "  and  "justice,"  in  the  wide  sense  which 
has  just  been  put  upon  the  terms  have  never  yet  been 
found  divorced  from  "  godliness."  As  we  have  seen 
already,  in  considering  the  negative  effects  of  training 
by  divine  grace,  it  is  man's  relations  to  his  God,  that 
must  adjust  and  determine  his  relations  to  his  fellow- 
creatures.  The  symmetrical  position  of  the  points  in 
the  circumference  arises  from  their  common  relation 
to  a  common  centre.  Set  a  man  right  with  God,  and 
he  will  certainly  be  set  right  with  his  neighbours. 
The  remaining  exceptions  as  to  this  point  only  show 
the  imperfection  of  his  piety,  but  do  not  disj)rove  its 
existence.  In  spite  of  all  such  exceptions,  it  is  still 
true  that  the  man  who  loves  God  loves  his  neighbour 
and  himself,  not  with  a  frenzied,  but  a  rational  attach- 
ment, and  that  he  who  enters  as  a  puj^il  in  the  school 
of  Christ  must  lay  his  account,  not  merely  in  the 
way  of  negative  abstinence,  to  deny  ungodliness  and 
worldly  lusts,  but  in  the  way  of  positive  performance 
to  "  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly  in  this  pres- 
ent world." 


TITUS  2,  n-15.  325 

Sucli  are  tlie  objects  and  effects  of  Christian  train- 
ing, that  is  of  the  method  by  which  Christ  trains  his 
disciples,  with  respect  to  the  present  state  or  stage  of 
man's  existence,  as  distinguished  from  those  future 
states  or  stages  to  which  he  cannot  but  look  forward. 
For  although  the  sobriety  of  mind  produced  by  the 
discipline  of  God's  grace,  causes  men  of  a  morbid, 
penurious  disposition  to  lose  sight  of  present  duties 
and  enjoyments  in  a  vague  anticipation  of  the  future, 
it  is  so  far  from  excluding  expectation  altogether,  that 
our  very  salvation  is  prospective.  "  "We  are  saved  in 
hope,"  and  that  hope  is  a  blessed  one  ;  a  hope  of  bles- 
sedness to  be  revealed  and  realized  hereafter  ;  a  hope, 
i.  e.  an  object  of  hope,  not  yet  fully  enjoyed,  but  only 
"  looked  for,"  and  to  look  for  which  is  one  of  the  ef- 
fects and  marks  of  thorough  training  in  the  school  of 
Christ.  A  religion  without  hope  must  have  been 
learned  elsewhere.  The  saving  grace  of  God  instructs 
us,  while  we  "  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly " 
in  this  present  world,  to  look  for  the  fulfilment  of  that 
blessed  hope,  in  reference  to  Avhich  we  are  said,  by  an 
anticipation  of  our  own  experience,  to  be  saved  already. 

This  hope  is  neither  selfish  nor  indefinite.  It  does 
not  teiTninate  upon  ourselves,  our  own  deliverance 
from  suffering,  and  our  own  reception  into  heaven; 
nor  does  it  lose  itself  in  vague  anticipations  of  a 
nameless  good  to  be  experienced  hereafter.  Tlie 
Christian's  hope  is  in  the  highest  degree  generous  and 
well-defined.  It  is  generous,  because  it  rises  beyond 
personal  interests,  even  the  highest,  even  personal  sal- 
vation, to  the  glory  of  the  Saviour  as  the  ultimate 
end  to  be   desired   and   accomplished.     It  is   well- 


326  SERMONS. 

defined,  because,  instead  of  looking  at  this  glory  in 
the  abstra(!t,  it  gives  it  a  concrete  and  personal  em- 
bodiment ;  it  is  glory,  not  in  the  sense  of  the  meta- 
physician or  of  the  poet,  but  in  that  of  the  prophets, 
saints,  and  angels ;  it  is  manifested  and  apparent 
excellence,  a  glorious  epiphany,  analogous  to  that 
which  marked  Jeliov all's  presence  in  the  Holy  of 
Holies,  but  unspeakably  transcending  it  in  perma- 
nence and  brightness ;  the  glorious  appearance,  not  of 
any  mere  creature,  even  the  most  noble,  but  of  God 
liimself,  and  yet  not  of  God  in  his  essence,  which  is 
inaccessible  to  sense,  nor  even  in  some  special  and 
distinct  manifestation  of  the  Father,  or  the  Godhead, 
under  an  assumed  or  borrowed  form  of  which  the 
senses  may  take  cognizance,  but  in  the  well-known 
person  of  his  Son,  who  is  the  brightness  of  his  glory, 
and  the  express  image  of  his  person,  in  whom  dwell- 
eth  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily  ;,  and  there- 
fore it  is  not  the  untempered  brightness  of  the  divine 
majesty,  and  holiness,  and  justice  which  to  us  is,  and 
must  be  a  consuming  lire ;  and  yet  it  is  the  manifested 
glory  of  God,  of  the  great  God  ;  great  in  all  conceiv- 
able perfections,  but  as  the  object  of  this  hope,  em- 
phatically great  in  mercy,  great  in  the  power  not  to 
punish  and  destroy,  but  to  forgive  and  save,  to  save 
tlie  sinner,  to  save  us  ;  the  glorious  appearing  of  our 
great  God  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  This  hope  is 
definite  and  vast  enough  to  fill  the  mind  and  satisfy 
the  heart,  however  vague  may  be  its  views  and  ap- 
prehensions with  resjDCct  to  the  precise  time,  and 
place,  and  form,  and  other  circumstances  of  the  epiph- 
any expected.     It  is  enough  to  know  that  it  is  Christ 


TITUS  2,  11-15.  327 

onr  Head  wlio  shall  appear ;  and  thanks  be  to  God, 
that  when  he  does  appear  we  shall  be  like  him  for  wo 
shall  see  him  as  he  is.  These  two  considerations — 
the  personal  identity  of  that  which  is  to  be  revealed 
in  glory,  and  the  prospect  of  personal  assimilation  tc 
this  glorious  object — are  enough  to  make  us  willing 
to  be  ignorant  of  all  that  concerns  merely  the  chro-^ 
nology,  or  geogi'aphy,  or  poetry  of  that  blessed  hope 
and  glorious  appearing  of  our  great  God  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ,  which  the  word  of  God  not  only  suffers, 
but  requires  us  to  look  for,  as  a  sure  sign,  because  an 
unavoidable  effect,  of  genuine,  thorough,  successful 
training  in  the  school  of  Christ,  and  under  the  edu- 
cating guidance  of  that  "  saving  grace,"  which,  for 
this  very  purpose,  has  "  appeared,"  or  been  revealed 
"  to  all  men." 

Let  it  not  be  overlooked,  however,  that  the  gospel, 
while  it  sets  Christ  before  us  as  an  object  of  believing 
expectation,  sets  him  also  before  us  an  object  of  be- 
lieving recollection,  and  thus  brings  into  a  delightful 
harmony  the  hope  of  favours  yet  to  be  experienced 
with  gratitude  for  those  experienced  already.  It  is  not 
simply  as  a  glorious  person,  human  or  divine,  that  we 
look  for  his  appearing ;  it  is  not  simply  as  a  Saviour  or 
Deliverer  from  evil  in  the  general ;  it  is  not  simply  as 
a  potential  Saviour  or  Deliverer,  one  who  can  save 
us  if  he  will,  and  will  if  we  should  need  it  at  some 
future  time ;  not  merely  a  Saviour  whose  ability  and 
willingness  to  save  are  yet  to  be  displayed  and 
proved,  but  as  an  actual  deliverer,  as  one  who  has  al- 
ready done  his  saving  work,  by  giving  himself  for  us, 
the  highest  gift,  it  may  in  a  certain  sense  be  said,  of 


328  SERMONS. 

which  even  lie  was  capable,  for  lis,  his  creatures,  his 
rebellious  subjects,  his  despisers,  and  his  enemies ! 
Had  he  given  infinitely  less  for  us,  it  might  have 
been  too  much  for  justice,  too  much  for  mercy,  for 
any  mercy  but  for  that  of  God ;  but  he  gave  all  that 
he  could  give,  for  he  gave  himself  to  assume  our  na- 
ture, to  be  degraded,  to  be  mocked  at,  to  be  put 
to  death.  He  did  not  merely  give  his  name,  his 
friendship,  or  his  royal  favour,  but  he  gave  himself ! 
In  the  highest,  strongest,  most  exhaustive  meaning  that 
the  words  will  bear,  he  "  gave  himself''  and  "  gave 
him  self  yb/"ws."  This  he  has  done,  and  he  has  done  it 
for  a  purpose,  and  by  every  law  of  gratitude,  as  well 
as  interest,  we  are  bound,  so  far  as  that  purpose  con- 
cerns us,  to  do  what  we  can  for  its  accomplishment. 

What  then  was  his  object  ?  To  redeem  us,  to  buy 
us  back  from  bondage,  to  save  us  by  the  payment  of 
a  ransom-price,  not  only  from  the  punishment  of  sin, 
but  from  its  power,  from  its  love,  from  its  pollution, 
from  its  foul  and  hideous  embrace,  no  less  than  from 
its  sword  and  from  its  chains.  It  was  to  set  us  free 
from  sin  itself  that  Christ  redeemed  us ;  not  from  some 
sin,  but  from  all  sin  ;  not  that  we  should  still  remain, 
or  afterwards  fall  back  under  the  dominion  of  the 
very  tyrant  from  whose  power  he  redeemed  us ;  not 
that  we  should  merely  exchange  one  hard  master  for 
another,  or  for  many;  no,  he  "gave  himself  for  us," 
he  laid  down  his  life  for  us,  he  died  upon  the  cross 
for  us,  "  that  he  might  redeem  us  from  all  iniquity.''^ 
ISTor  was  this  deliverance  from  sin  as  well  as  pun- 
ishment intended  merely  for  our  advantage  but  for 
His.     He  had  an  end  to  accomplish  for  himself.     He 


TITUS  2,  i:-i5.  329 

died  to  purify  us,  not  merely  that  we  miglit  be  pure 
and  therefore  happy,  but  also  to  purify  a  people  for 
himself ;  a  peculium,  a  possession  of  his  own,  a 
church,  a  body  of  which  he  should  be  the  head,  a 
kingdom  of  which  he  should  be  the  sovereign.  Over 
none  but  a  purified  and  holy  kingdom  could  he  con- 
descend to  reign.  Of  none  but  a  purified  and  holy 
body  could  he  be  the  Head.  Justification  would 
have  done  but  half  the  work  for  which  Christ  died; 
his  end  would  not  have  been  accomplished  if  he  had 
not  redeemed  us  from  iniquity  as  well  as  condemna- 
tion, if  he  had  not  purified  a  people  for  himself,  for 
his  own  use  and  his  own  honour ;  a  people  in  their 
measure  like  himself,  his  own  exclusively,  his  own 
forever,  his  inalienable  right,  his  indefeasible  posses- 
sion, his  "  peculiar  people." 

How  monstrous  then  the  supposition  or  pretence 
that  the  design  of  Christ's  death  is  reconcileable  with 
Antinomian  license  on  the  part  of  those  for  whom  he 
died  ;  that  because  he  died  to  make  men  holy,  there- 
fore they  need  not  be  holy ;  that  because  he  gave 
himself  for  us,  to  purify  a  people  for  himself,  there- 
fore we  may  be  his  people,  and  yet  not  be  pure ;  that 
because  his  "  good  works  "  have  been  set  to  our  ac- 
count, we  need  do  no  "  good  works"  for  him.  The 
very  contrary  commends  itself  as  evidently  true  to 
gratitude,  to  conscience,  nay  to  common  sense.  Tlie 
body,  the  church,  the  kingdom,  the  peculiar  people 
of  Christ,  without  good  works,  without  fruits  meet 
for  rej)entance,  without  experimental  evidence  of 
union  to  him  by  faith,  is  an  absurdity,  an  odious  con- 
tradiction, a  blasphemous  aspersion ;  as  if  God  could 


330  SERMONS. 

deny  himself ;  as  if  tlie  Son  of  God  could  be  the  "  min- 
ister of  sin."  So  far  from  dispensing  with  "good 
works "  on  our  part,  he  is  not  even  satisfied  with 
good  works  practised  or  performed  from  stress  of  con- 
science, or  from  habit,  or  from  fear,  or  as  a  sheer  for- 
mality. To  such  works  indeed  he  denies  the  attribute 
of  goodness,  for  they  lack  the  very  quality  by  which 
alone  they  could  be  rendered  good,  at  least  in  His 
sight;  It  is  not  the  moral  or  the  physical  effect  on 
others,  nor  tlie  outward  conformity  to  rule,  nor  the 
solemnity  with  which  the  action  is  performed,  that 
constitutes  it  good.  It  must  be  wrought  in  faith  and 
love ;  not  only  love  to  man,  but  love  to  God,  and  love 
to  Christ,  or  it  is  worthless.  IS^ay,  he  asks  still  more 
to  make  good  works  acceptable.  He  asks  that  they 
be  wrouglit  with  stroiig  affection,  with  intensity  of 
spirit,  with  a  burning  zeal ;  a  zeal  of  God,  according 
to  knowledge.  The  people  whom  he  died  to  purify 
for  himself,  must  be  not  only  pure  and  diligent,  but 
zealous ;  not  merely  passive  and  submissive,  but  spon- 
taneous,  eager,  emulous,  to  please  him,  "  his  peculiar 
people  zealous  of  good  works." 

All  the  doctrines  here  presented  are,  or  ought  to 
be,  familiar  to  our  minds  as  household  words,  and 
elementary  ideas.  The  mode,  in  which  I  have  en- 
deavoured to  exhibit  them,  is  not,  as  I  am  well  aware, 
the  most  agreeable  to  that  taste  which  prefers  points 
to  lines,  and  lines  to  surfaces,  and  sm-faces  to  depth 
and  substance.  It  is  well,  however,  at  least  some- 
times, to  contemplate  the  familiar  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity, not  merely  as  they  may  be  picked  out,  and 
adjusted  in  an  artificial  system,  but  as  they  lie  upon 


TITUS  2,  11-15.  331 

the  face^f  Scripture,  and  as  they  were  associated  in 
the  minds  of  the  inspired  writers,  and  the  primitive 
disciples.  The  more  attentively  we  read  the  word  of 
God,  the  more  highly  shall  we  be  disposed  to  value 
these  original  associations,  the  affinities  as  well  as  tlie 
intrmsic  qualities  of  saving  truth,  not  merely  the 
more  recondite  affinities  disclosed  by  philosophical 
analysis,  but  those  more  obvious  ones  suggested  by 
juxtaposition  in  the  letter  of  the  Scriptures.  In  this, 
as  in  so  many  other  cases,  we  may  learn  from  expe- 
rience that  "  the  foolishness  of  God  is  wiser  than  men." 
But  whatever  we  may  think,  as  to  the  form  of 
presentation,  let  us  guard  against  a  mistake  as  to  the 
truths  themselves.  They  are  here  exhibited,  not  only 
as  objects  of  belief,  but  as  subjects  of  instruction. 
The  writing  which  contains  them,  is  a  pastoral  epistle ; 
filled  with  the  advice  and  apostolical  injunctions  of 
"  Paul  the  aged,"  to  a  spiritual  child  and  an  official 
representative,  and  through  him  to  the  ministry  of 
that  age,  and  of  this,  and  every  other.  In  reference 
to  all  the  foregoing  precepts,  but  especially  to  those 
immediately  preceding,  which  have  been  the  subject 
of  discourse  this  morning,  he  says  to  Titus  :  "  These 
things  speak,"  talk  of  them,  both  in  public,  and  in 
private,  make  them  the  theme  of  conversation,  as  well 
as  of  formal  preaching.  Do  not  be  content  with  think- 
ing of  them,  understanding  and  believing  them,  but 
s])eoli  them^  utter  them,  impart  them  to  your  hearers, 
to  your  friends  and  neighbours,  to  your  pupils  and 
parishioners,  your  brethren  in  the  ministry,  your 
equals  and  inferiors  in  office,  to  all  with  whom  you 
come  in  contact,  or  to  whom  you  have  access,  "  these 
things  speak." 


332  SERMONS. 

But  how  ?  As  curious  and  interesting  matters  of 
opinion,  or  tlic  dictates  of  a  mere  theoretical  wisdom  ? 
Not  at  all,  but  as  matters  to  be  acted  on  and  acted 
out^  as  involving  not  merely  truths  to  be  believed, 
but  duties  to  be  done,  and  to  the  doing  of  whieh,  men 
must  be  aroused  and  prompted.  "  These  things  speak 
and  exhort  /  "  on  the  basis  of  sound  doctrine  rear  the 
superstructure  of  sound  practice,  in  your  own  case 
and  in  that  of  others.  To  yourself,  to  all  who  hear 
you,  to  all  who  need  the  admonition  "  these  things 
speak  and  exhort  !  " 

But  what,  if  men  resist  tliese  humbling  truths, 
and  angrily  reject  them  ?  No  matter,  only  add  reproof 
to  exhortation — not  arbitrary  and  passionate  reproof, 
but,  as  the  word  here  used  denotes,  reproof  produced 
by  and  founded  on  conviction.  Convince  them  of  the 
truth,  and  convict  them  of  their  guilt,  and  then  re- 
prove them.  Appeal  not  only  to  their  reason,  but 
their  conscience,  "  these  things  speak,  and  exhort,  and 
rebuke,"  not  in  your  own  name,  nor  in  mine,  but  in 
His  name,  whose  you  are,  and  whom  you  serve ;  as 
asserting  his  rights,  and  as  holding  his  commission, 
be  not  afraid  or  ashamed  to  speak  the  truth,  but 
whenever  the  occasion  is  afforded,  "  these  things  speak 
and  exhort,  and  rebuke  with  all  authority  !  " 

But  what  if  men  treat  you  and  your  message  with 
levity.  "  Let  no  man  despise  thee."  This  sug- 
gests two  ideas,  both  of  which  are  useful  and  appro- 
px'iate  to  us.  Let  no  man  despising  thee,  prevent  the 
full  discharge  of  certain  duty.  "  He  that  despiseth  you, 
despiseth  me,  and  he  that  despiseth  me,  despiseth  him 
that  sent  me."    If  men  will  despise  God  and  Christ, 


TITUS  2,  11-15.  333 

the  human  messenger  may  well  consent  to  be  despised 
along  with  them.  Let  them  despise  thee,  but  let  not 
the  eifect  be  caused  by  cowardly  supression,  or  disin- 
genuous corruption  of  the  truth  on  your  part.  As  a 
faithful  messenger  of  God  and  an  ambassador  of  Christ, 
let  men  despise  you,  if  they  will  or  if  they  must,  let 
them  despise  you  at  their  peril.  But  as  a  traitor  to 
the  truth  and  to  its  author,  let  no  man  despise  thee. 
"  For  this  is  thankworthy,  if  a  man  for  conscience 
toward  God  endure  grief,  suffering  w^-ongfuUy.  For 
what  glory  is  it,  if  when  ye  be  buffeted  for  your  faults, 
ye  shall  take  it  patiently ;  but  if,  when  ye  do  well, 
and  suffer  for  it,  ye  take  it  patiently,  this  is  accept- 
able with  God.  For  even  hereunto  were  ye  called, 
because  Christ   also   suffered   for  us,  leaving  us  an 

example  that  ye  should  follow  his  steps." "  Who 

is  he  that  will  harm  you,  if  ye  be  followers  of  that 
which  is  good  ?     But  and  if  ye  suffer  for  righteousness' 

sake,  happy  are  ye." "  For  it  is  better,  if  the 

will  of  God  be  so,  that  ye  suffer  for  well-doing  than 

for  evil-doing." "  If  ye  be  reproached  for  the 

name  of  Christ,  happy  are  ye,  for  the  spirit  of  glory 
and  of  God  resteth  upon  you ;  on  their  part  he  is  evil- 
spoken  of,  but  on  your  part,  he  is  glorified."  "If 

any  man  suffer  as  a  Christian,  let  him  not  be  ashamed, 
but  let  him  glorify  God  on  this  behalf."  These  con- 
solatory warnings  drawn  from  the  experience  of  an- 
other great  apostle,  and  one  who  well  knew  what  it 
was  to  suffer  both  for  his  own  faults,  and  the  name  of 
Christ,  may  serve  to  illustrate  and  to  qualify  Paul's 
pointed  charge.  "  Let  no  man  despise  thee."  To  us, 
my  brethren,  who  preach  the  gospel  or  expect  to 


334  SERMONS. 

preach  it,  and  especially  to  those  of  you  who  are 
soon  to  enter  on  that  difficult  but  necessary,  dangerous 
but  blessed  work,  the  words  of  the  apostle  have 
peculiar  interest;  for  in  reference  to  these  simple  but 
essential  truths,  which  we  have  been  considering,  and 
to  the  risk  of  error  or  unfaithfulness  in  teaching  them, 
"  he  being  dead  yet  speaketh,"  saying,  not  only  to 
the  church  at  large,  but  more  directly  to  each  one  of 
us,  "These  things  speak,  and  exhort,  and  rebuke  with 
all  authority.     Let  no  man  despise  thee  !  " 


XVIII. 

Ltjek  22,  32. — When  thou  art  converted,  strengthen  thy  brethren. 

Theee  is  nothing  in  wliicli  self-ignorance  displays 
itself  more  frequently  than  in  men's  estimation  of  their 
own  strength  and  weakness.  It  is  enough  that  they 
consider  themselves  strong  when  they  are  weak.  They 
go  still  further,  and  consider  themselves  strongest 
at  the  very  points  where  they  are  weakest.  Hence 
the  easy  conquest  of  the  tempter  by  assailing  men  at 
those  points  which  require  protection  most,  but  which 
enjoy  it  least.  I^othing  is  more  familiar  as  a  trait  of 
human  character,  than  the  disposition  to  be  vain  or 
proud  of  foibles  and  weaknesses.  A  striking  historical 
example  of  this  error  and  its  fruits  is  afforded  by  the 
character  of  Peter.  His  intrepidity  and  self-reliance 
might  have  seemed  to  constitute  his  strength,  and  yet 
we  find  them  lying  at  the  root  of  his  defections.  This 
was  the  case  even  in  those  minor  aberrations  which 
incurred  our  Lord's  rebuke  from  time  to  time. 

But  it  is  still  more  clear,  in  reference  to  his  great 
fall,  the  denial  of  his  master.  To  himself  this  seemed 
incredible,  even  when  predicted,  as  it  is  in  the  pas- 
sage whence  the  text  is  taken.  But  along  with  his 
fall  our  Lord  predicts  his  restoration  or  conversion. 


336  SERMONS. 

"  When  thou  art  converted."  This  might  seem  to 
impl}'-  that  Peter  was  before  an  unconverted  man,  or 
that  his  fall  was  an  entire  fall  from  grace.  Both  these 
conclusions  are  forbidden  by  the  promise  which  im- 
mediately precedes  the  exhortation  of  the  text.  "  Si- 
mon, Simon,  Satan  hath  desired  to  have  you  that  he 
may  sift  you  as  wheat ;  but  I  have  prayed  for  thee 
that  thy  faith  fail  not."  These  last  words  prove  (1)  that 
he  had  faith,  and  (2)  that  his  faith  was  not  entirely  to 
fail.  Nor  will  the  context  bear  any  other  explanation 
of  the  word  "  faith  "  but  as  meaning  that  which  con- 
stitutes a  true  believer.  The  conversion,  therefore, 
here  immediately  referred  to,  is  not  the  primary  orig- 
inal conversion  of  a  sinner  from  his  natural  condition 
to  the  love  of  God,  but  a  reconversion  of  one  who  had 
been  before  converted. 

This  reconversion  is  connected  in  the  text  with  a 
peculiar  influence  to  be  exerted  on  his  brethren,  i.  e., 
those  in  the  same  situation,  exposed  to  the  same  temp- 
tations, in  danger  of  a  like  fall.  "  Strengthen  thy 
brethren,"  i.  c,  confirm  their  faith,  preserve  them 
from  the  same  disgrace  which  has  befallen  thee.  This 
strengthening  eifect  was  not  to  be  wrought  by  any 
natural  power  of  Peter,  nor  by  any  oflScial  authority 
conferred  upon  him.  It  was  only  to  be  the  product  of 
a  moral  inflluence  created  by  the  very  circumstances 
of  the  case,  i.  e.,  by  the  very  fact  of  his  conversion. 
And  as  this  conversion  may  exist  in  other  cases, 
too,  it  will,  perhaps,  afford  a  profitable  theme  for 
meditation  to  inquire  what  it  is  and  how  it  operates. 
The  only  division  of  the  subject  needed,  is  the  one 
presented  by  the  text  itself— (1)  When  thou  art  con- 


LUKE  22,  32.  337 

rerted,  (2)  streng+Jien  tlij  brethren.     (1)  Conversion  ; 
(2)  Strengthening  the  brethren. 

In  speaking  briefly  of  the  first,  I  shall  begin  with 
conversion  in  general,  and  afterwards  advert  to  re- 
conversion in  particular.  The  term  conversion  is  so 
familiar  in  its  spiritual  sense  and  application,  that  wc 
seldom  think  of  it  as  metaphorical.  But  the  original 
terms  corresponding  both  to  this  word  and  its  cog- 
nate forms  convert  and  convert,  are  applied  even  in 
the  ISTew  Testament  to  physical  as  well  as  moral 
changes.  To  this  primary  usage  of  the  words  it  may 
be  useful  to  revert,  not  only  for  the  purpose  of  deter- 
mining their  essential  import,  but  to  mark  certain 
gradations  in  their  meaning  as  applied  both  to  natural 
and.  spiritual  objects.  The  essential  primary  idea  is 
that  of  a  corporeal  turning  round,  without  any  thing 
to  limit  it.  The  act  described  may  be  that  of  turning 
round  and  round  indefinitely,  still  coming  back  to  the 
original  position,  and  then  leaving  it  again,  in  a  per- 
petual succession  of  rotations.  But  to  this  original 
notion  which  is  inseparable  from  the  word,  nsage  in 
many  cases  adds  certain  accessory  notions.  One  of 
these  is  the  idea  of  turning  in  a  definite  direction,  i.  e., 
towards  a  certain  object.  The  difference  is  that  be- 
tween a  wheel's  turning  on  its  axis  and  a  flower  turn- 
ins:  towards  the  sun.  But  in  some  connections  there 
is  a  still  further  accession  to  the  primary  idea ;  so  that 
the  words  necessarily  suggest  not  the  mere  act  of 
turning,  nor  the  act  of  turning  in  a  definite  direc- 
tion, but  the  act  of  turning  from  one  object  to  another, 
which  are  then,  of  course,  presented  in  direct  antithe^ 
BIS  to  one  another. 

VOL.  I. 15 


338  SERMONS. 

Tiins  the  magnetic  needle,  if  meclianically  pointed 
towards  the  south,  is  no  sooner  set  at  liberty  than  it 
will  turn  from  that  point  to  the  north.  In  this  case, 
however,  there  is  still  another  accessory  motion  added 
to  the  simj^le  one  of  turning,  namely,  that  of  turning 
back  to  a  point  from  which  it  had  before  been  turned 
away.  And  this  idea  of  return  or  retroversion  may 
of  course  be  repeated  without  limit,  and  without  any 
further  variation  of  tlie  meaning  of  the  term  used, 
which  is  still  the  same,  whether  the  turning  back  be 
for  the  first  or  second,  tenth  or  hundredth  time.  All 
these  distinctions  or  gradations  may  be  traced  also  in 
the  spiritual  uses  of  the  term.  As  thus  applied,  con- 
version is  a  change  of  character,  i.  e.,  of  principles 
and  aflections,  with  a  corresponding  change  of  out- 
ward life. 

Now,  such  a  change  may  be  conceived  of,  as  a 
vague,  unsettled,  frequently  repeated  revolution  of 
the  views  and  feelings,  without  any  determinate  char- 
acter or  end.  But  the  conversion  spoken  of  in  Scrip- 
ture is  relieved  from  this  indefiniteness  by  a  constant 
reference  to  one  specific  object  to  which  the  convert 
turns.  It  is  to  God,  that  all  conversion  is  described 
as  taking  place.  But  how,  in  what  sense,  does  man 
turn  to  God  ?  The  least  and  lowest  that  can  be  sup- 
posed to  enter  into  this  conception,  is  a  turning  to 
God,  as  an  object  of  attention  or  consideration,  tm-n- 
ing,  as  it  were,  for  the  first  time,  to  look  at  him,  just 
as  we  might  turn  towards  any  object  of  sense  wliich 
had  before  escaped  attention  or  been  out  of  sight. 
This  is,  in  fact,  a  necessary  part  of  the  experimental 
process  of  conversion. 


LUKE  22,  32.  339 

To  tlie  mind  in  its  natural  condition,  God  is  absent 
or  unseen  as  an  object  of  attentive  contemplation. 
When  a  change  is  effected,  one  of  the  first  symptoms 
is  a  turning  of  the  soul  to  look  at  him,  to  gaze  upon 
him,  often  with  wonder  at  the  blindness  or  stupidity 
which  kept  him  so  long  out  of  view.  This  change  of 
feeling  can  by  no  corporeal  movement  be  so  well  rep- 
resented as  by  that  of  turning  round  to  look  at  some- 
thing which  before  was  out  of  sight.  But  the  same 
influence  which  brings  about  this  simple  contempla- 
tion of  God  as  an  object  before  unknown  or  disre- 
garded, gives  it  a  higher  character  by  fixing  the  at- 
tention on  the  attributes  of  the  object,  so  that  wliat 
might  have  been  a  gaze  of  curiosity,  is  deepened  into 
one  of  admiration  ;  and,  as  the  absolute  perfection  of 
the  excellence  admired  becomes  apparent,  into  one  of 
adoration ;  and  as  the  personal  affections  become 
more  and  more  enlisted,  into  one  of  love  and  confi- 
dence and  self-devotion.  Thus  the  turning  which  the 
word  of  God  describes  as  necessary  to  salvation,  is  a 
turning  to  God  as  an  object  of  admiring  and  adoring, 
loving  and  confiding  contemplation.  This  may  be  so 
presented  to  the  mind  as  to  exclude  or  swallow  up  all 
accessory  notions,  by  concentrating  the  thoughts  upon 
Him  to  whom  the  sinner  turns.  But  sometimes,  per- 
haps commonly,  the  Scriptures  so  speak  of  conversion 
as  to  suggest  distinctly  the  idea  of  that  from  which, 
as  well  as  of  that  to  which,  we  turn.  "We  do  not  turn 
to  God  from  nothing  or  neutrality.  We  turn  from  his 
opposites,  his  enemies,  his  rivals.  God  is  never  the 
first  object  of  supreme  affection  to  his  fallen  creatures. 
The  change  is  not  from  loving  nothing,  but  from  lov- 


340  SERMONS. 

ing  self,  from  loving  sin.  "When  we  turn,  we  turn 
from  darkness  to  light,  from  death  to  life,  from  hell  to 
heaven,  from  the  power  of  Satan  unto  God. 

The  state  from  which  we  turn  determines  the 
method  of  conversion,  or  defines  what  acts  and  exer- 
cises are  included  in  it.  If  our  natural  condition  were 
only  one  of  ignorance  or  innocent  infirmity,  conver- 
sion would  involve  nothing  more  than  intellectual  il- 
lumination and  increase  of  strength,  both  which  it 
really  includes.  But  if  our  native  state  be  one  of 
guilt  and  condemnation,  and  of  utter  impotence  to  all 
good,  then  conversion  necessarily  imiDlies  deliverance 
from  guilt  by  a  power  independent  of  our  own ;  and 
this  presupposes  faith  in  that  gratuitous  deliverance, 
while  the  very  act  of  turning  from  a  state  of  sin  im- 
plies a  change  of  mind,  i.  e.,  of  judgment  and  of  feel- 
ing with  respect  to  it.  Conversion,  therefore,  as  ex- 
hibited in  Scripture,  is  inseparable  from  repentance 
toward  God  and  faith  toward  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ; 
because,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  without  these  it 
is  utterly  impossible,  in  any  truly  scriptural  sense,  to 
turn  from  sin  and  Satan  unto  God. 

Sometimes,  again,  the  idea  is  suggested  that  we 
not  only  turn  to  God,  but  turn  back  to  him.  This 
may  at  first  sight  appear  inconsistent  with  the  fact 
just  stated,  that  our  first  afiections  are  invariably  given 
to  the  world  and  to  ourselves.  But  even  those  who  are 
converted,  for  the  first  time,  from  a  state  of  total 
alienation,  may  be  said  to  turn  back  to  God,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  great  original  apostasy  in  which  we  are 
all  implicated.  As  individuals,  we  never  know  God 
till  we  are  converted.    As  a  race,  we  have  all  de- 


LUKE  22,  32.  341 

parted  from  Ilim,  and  conversion  is  but  turning  hack 
to  him.  But  this  expression  is  still  more  appropriate, 
even  in  its  strict  sense,  to  the  case  of  those  who  have 
already  been  converted,  and  are  only  reclaimed  from 
a  partial  and  temporary  alienation,  from  relapsing 
into  sin,  or  what  is  called,  in  religious  phraseology, 
declension,  and,  in  the  w^ord  of  God  itself,  backsliding. 
.That  the  term  conversion  may  be  properly  applied  to 
such  a  secondary  restoration,  is  apparent  from  the 
language  of  the  text,  where  it  is  used  by  Christ  him- 
self, of  one  who  is  expressly  said  to  have  had  fiiith, 
and  faith  which  did  not  absolutely  fail.  This  usage 
agrees  fully  with  the  nature  of  conversion  as  described 
in  Scripture,  and  with  the  primary  import  of  the  fig- 
urative term  itself.  Suppose  a  person  to  have  turned 
completely  round  from  one  object  toward  another,  from 
the  west,  for  instance,  to  the  rising  sun,  and  to  be  so 
attracted  and  absorbed  by  this  grand  sight,  that  he 
cannot  wholly  turn  away  from  it,  we  may  still  con- 
ceive of  him  as  turning  partially  away,  and  even  try- 
ing to  embrace  both  objects  in  his  field  of  vision. 
This  is  no  bad  illustration  of  the  case  in  question. 
The  perseverance  of  the  saints  is  not  secured  by  any 
thing  inherent  in  themselves,  nor  even  by  the  nature 
of  the  change  wrought  in  conversion,  but  by  an  al- 
mighty intervention,  rendered  certain  by  a  special 
promise.  They  are  "  kept  by  the  power  of  God  through 
faith  unto  salvation."  Upon  this  same  power,  and 
this  same  promise,  they  would  be  dependent  even  if 
transferred  at  once  to  heaven ;  how  much  more  when 
left  to  struggle  w^ith  temptation  and  the  remains  of 
their  original  corruption.     Tliey  who  have  once  truly 


342  SERMONS. 

turned  to  God,  can  never  wholly  turn  away  from  nim 
so  as  to  lose  sight  of  him  forever.  But  they  may  turn 
partly  round,  they  may  turn  half  round,  they  may  try 
to  look  both  ways  at  once,  as  all  do  who  endeavor  to 
serve  God  and  mammon,  or  who,  like  heathen  settlers 
in  Samaria,  fear  the  Lord  and  serve  their  own  god. 
They  may  turn  more  than  half  round,  so  as  scarcely 
to  see  any  thing  of  that  towards  which  they  lately 
looked  with  such  delight,  and  so  as  to  be  reckoned  by 
the  world  with  tliose  who  have  their  eyes  and  hearts 
fixed  upon  it. 

There  is  something  fearful  in  the  length  to  which 
this  retroversion  may  be  carried,  in  the  gradual  ap- 
proximation of  tlie  convert  to  his  old  position,  and  the 
little  that  seems  wanting  sometimes  to  complete  the 
counter-revolution  when  he  is  arrested  and  turned 
back  again.  Wlien  thus  recovered,  he  must  pass 
through  m"iich  of  the  same  process  as  at  first.  His 
second  turning  no  less  necessaril}^  involves  repentance 
and  belief  The  object  of  his  faitli  is  still  the  same. 
The  pangs  of  godly  sorrow,  far  from  being  soothed, 
are  exasperated  by  the  recollection  of  a  previous  re- 
pentance and  a  subsequent  relapse.  It  is  a  new  con- 
version, then,  in  all  respects  but  one — the  point  at 
which  the  convert  sets  out,  and  the  distance  over 
which  he  passes.  The  neglect  or  rejection  of  this  doc- 
trine has  a  pernicious  practical  effect.  The  idea  that 
conversion  can  in  no  sense  be  repeated,  and  that  err- 
ing Cliristians  must  return  to  duty  in  a  way  generic- 
ally  difi'erent  from  that  by  which  they  came  to  God 
at  first,  has  a  necessary  tendency  to  foster  spiritual 
pride,  by  making  all  defection  seem  impossible  ;  and 


LUKE  22,  32.  343 

tlien,  wlien  pride  has  had  its  fall    to  breed  despond- 
ency by  leaving  no  means  of  recovery. 

The  truths  opposed  to  these  pernicious  errors  are, 
that  even  true  believers  may  depart  from  God,  and 
though,  through  Chnst's  intercession,  their  faith  can- 
not wholly  fail,  they  must  experience  a  new  conver- 
sion— must  repent,  believe,  submit,  as  really  as  if 
they  had  been  always  in  the  gall  of  bitterness  and  the 
bond  of  iniquity.  Often,  when  men  are  using  pal- 
liative remedies  or  resting  wholly  on  remote  expe- 
rience, what  they  really  need  is  to  be  converted,  to 
repent  and  do  their  first  works.  Peter  had  faith,  and 
it  was  not  to  fail,  even  in  that  fiery  trial,  because 
Christ  prayed  that  it  might  not  fail ;  but  it  was  to  be 
severely  tried,  and  he  was  to  experience  a  fearful, 
ignominious  fall,  from  which  he  could  only  be  re- 
covered by  a  new  conversion,  by  a  new  repentance, 
and  new  acts  of  faith.  "  I  iiave  prayed  for  thee, 
that  thy  faith  fail  not ;  and  when  thou  art  converted, 
strengthen  thy  brethren." 

This  brings  us  again  to  the  second  point  suggested 
by  the  text,  to  wit,  that  conversion,  whether  primary 
or  secondary,  total  or  partial,  tends  to  the  strengthen- 
ing of  others,  i.  <?.,  to  their  preservation  or  recovery 
from  the  evils  which  the  convert  has  himself  escaped. 
In  answer  to  the  question,  how  does  conversion  tend 
to  this  result  ?  the  general  fact  may  be  thus  resolved 
into  .three  distinct  particulars :  1.  It  enables  men 
to  strengthen  others.  2.  It  obliges  men  to  strengthen 
others.  3.  It  disposes  men  to  strengthen  others.  The 
convert  is  enabled  to  confirm  or  rescue  others  by  his 
knowledge  of  their  character  and  state.     He  knows, 


344 


SERMONtl. 


not  only  what  lie  sees  in  tliem,  but  what  he  feels  or 
has  felt  in  himself.  Take,  for  instance,  the  new  con- 
vert from  a  state  of  total  unbelief  and  impenitence. 
He  knows  the  misery  of  that  state,  as  it  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  known  by  those  who  still  continue  in  it. 
They  know  what  he  knew  once,  but  he  knows  in  ad- 
dition, what  he  never  knew  at  all  until  awakened  and 
enlightened  by  the  grace  of  God.  Their  view  of  it 
tends  only  to  despair  or  false  security.  His,  rouses  to 
exertion.  He  looks  at  the  reality  as  well  from  their 
point  of  observation  as  his  own,  and  the  very  insensi- 
bility which  he  perceives  in  them,  excites  him  to 
new  efforts  for  their  rescue,  for  he  knows  that  he  was 
once  as  stupid  and  as  much  in  danger.  He  knows, 
too,  the  inefficacy  of  the  means  which  they  employ  to 
strengthen  or  to  save  themselves.  For  he  remembers 
his  own  struggles  in  the  slough,  and  the  momentum 
with  which  every  effort  sunk  him  deeper  and  deeper. 
This  remembrance  helps  him  to  discern  what  is  truly 
needed  in  the  case  of  others,  and  prevents  his  relying, 
as  he  once  did  in  his  own  case,  upon  any  thing  except 
the  true  foundation. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  knows  the  sovereign  virtue 
of  the  means  which  God  provides — the  truth,  the 
blood  of  Christ,  the  influences  of  the  Spirit.  He  ap- 
preciates the  freeness' with  which  these  are  offered, 
and  the  simplicity  of  God's  way  of  salvation,  which, 
without  experience,  men  are  always  sure  to  under- 
rate or  misconceive.  He  knows  too,  by  experience, 
how  their  hearts  are  most  accessible,  what  are  their 
difficulties,  doubts,  and  scruples,  what  are  the  vulner- 
able points  at  which  they  may  be  best  assailed,  as 


LUKE  22,  32.  345 

tvell  for  evil  as  for  good,  as  well  by  Satan  as  by 
God.  From  this  experimental  knowledge  of  the  evil, 
the  remedy,  and  the  application,  even  the  new  con- 
vert is  peculiarly  able  to  do  good  to  others.  It  is 
accordingly  a  lesson  of  experience  that  men  are  or 
may  be  more  particularly  useful  in  this  way  to  those 
who  are  most  like  their  former  selves. 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  secondary,  subse- 
quent conversion  from  a  state  of  declension  or  back- 
sliding, to  which  the  text  more  immediately  refers. 
The  person  thus  reclaimed  knows  better  than  his 
brethren  who  have  not  yet  fallen,  the  peculiar  dangers 
which  environ  them,  the  weakness  of  their  faith,  the 
strength  of  their  temptations,  the  illusions  of  the  ad- 
versary. He  knows  the  hideous  shame  of  the  relapse, 
and  the  remorseful  anguish  of  the  first  convulsive 
movements  towards  repentance.  He  knows  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  restoration — how  much  harder  it  is  now 
to  excite  hope  or  confirm  faith,  how  much  less  effec- 
tive, either  warning,  or  encouragement,  or  argument 
is  now  than  it  once  was — how  precarious  even  the 
most  specious  reformation  and  repentance  must  be 
after  such  deflections.  All  that  tends  to  make  him 
watchful  in  his  own  case,  and  to  arm  him  against  those 
insidious  foes  by  whom  he  was  betrayed  or  van- 
quished, at  the  same  time  enables  him  to  strengthen 
others.  This  advantage  of  experimental  knowledge 
is  accompanied,  moreover,  by  a  corresponding  liveli- 
ness of  feeling,  a  more  energetic  impulse,  such  as 
always  springs  from  recent  restorations  or  escapes.  It 
is  a  matter  of  proverbial  notoriety,  that  young  con- 
verts, as  a  class,  have  more  intensity  of  zeal  and  more 

Vf»L.  I. — 15* 


346  SERMONS. 

promptness  to  engage  in  active  effort.  This  zeal  is 
often  indiscreet,  but  when  sutficientlj  informed  and 
guided,  it  secures  to  those  who  have  it  an  immense 
advantage  over  those  whose  hearts  have  been  becom- 
ing cold,  in  due  proportion  to  the  increase  of  their 
knowledge  and  the  ripeness  of  their  judgment.  It  is 
this  elastic  spring  of  the  affections,  this  spontaneous 
movement  of  the  active  powers  to  exertion,  which, 
united  with  the  experimental  knowledge  before 
mentioned,  enables  the  new  convert  or  reclaimed 
backslider,  above  all  other  men,  to  "  strengthen  his 
brethren." 

Out  of  this  increased  ability  arises,  by  a  logical 
and  moral  necessity,  a  special  obligation.  This  is 
only  a  specific  application  of  a  principle  which  all 
acknowledge,  and  which  the  word  of  God  explicitly 
propounds,  "To  him  that  knoweth  to  do  good  and 
doeth  it  not,  to  him  it  is  sin."  It  needs  not  so  much 
to  be  explained  or  established,  as  to  be  exemplified 
from  real  life.  The  recognition  of  the  principle  is 
there  unhesitating  and  unanimous.  He  who  has  been 
recovered  from  the  power  of  a  desperate  disease  by  a 
new  or  unknown  remedy,  is  under  a  peculiar  obliga- 
tion to  apply  it,  or  at  least  to  make  it  known,  to  all 
affected  in  like  manner.  Hence  the  unsparing,  univer- 
sal condemnation  of  the  man  who,  from  mercenary 
motives,  holds  in  his  possession  secrets  of  importance 
to  the  health  or  happiness  of  others.  The  man  who 
Jias  just  escaped,  as  if  by  miracle,  from  the  devouring 
flames,  often  feels  that,  if  he  can,  he  is  particularly 
bound  to  save  those  who  arc  still  unconscious  of  the 
danger  or  unable  to  escape  it.     He  who  is  mercifully 


LUKE  22,  32,  347 

saved  from  shipwreck,  often  feels  especially  incum- 
bent on  himself  the  rescue  of  liis  fellows.  He  must 
do  what  he  can,  even  though  he  be  exhausted ;  how 
much  more  if  he  is  strengthened.  For  there  is  a  cir- 
cumstance which  makes  the  obligation  of  the  spiritual 
convert  to  confirm  or  rescue  others,  greater,  even  in 
proportion,  tlian  that  of  the  escaped  from  fire  or  ship- 
wreck. These  are  often,  if  not  always,  more  or  less 
disabled  by  the  very  circumstances  of  tlieir  own  de- 
liverance from  helping  others.  The  one,  though  saved 
as  by  fire,  may  be  scorched  and  bruised,  the  other 
stiffened  and  benumbed — both  stupified — so  that  long 
before  they  have  recovered  their  capacity  to  act,  the 
opportunity  of  saving  others  is  gone  by  forever.  But 
conversion  is  attended  by  no  such  contusions,  swoons, 
or  burnings.  On  the  contrary,  it  always  strengthens 
and  prepares  for  spiritual  action,  so  that  they  who  do 
not  act  for  the  deliverance  of  others,  are  without 
excuse. 

It  seems  to  me  that  these  considerations  are  suffi- 
cient to  establish  the  existence  of  the  obligation,  if 
indeed  there  can  be  any  disposition  to  dispute  it. 
But  in  this,,  as  in  other  cases,  the  bare  conviction  or 
oppressive  sense  of  duty  is  not  always  followed  by  an 
inclination  to  perform  it.  And  without  this  inclina- 
tion, no  effects  of  a  salutary  kind  can  be  expected. 
It  is  not  the  naked  knowledge  orbelief  of  what  is  right, 
that  prompts  to  virtuous  obedience.  Such  knowledge 
and  belief  may  coexist  with  hatred  of  the  thing  re- 
quired, and  with  a  fixed  determination  not  to  do  it. 
This  state  of  mind  is  probably  included  in  the  tor- 
ments of  the  damned.     The  heart  must  beat  in  concord 


348  SERMONS. 

"with  the  reason  and  the  conscie.ttce.  And  H  does  so 
in  the  case  of  the  true  convert,  both  in  general  and  in 
reference  to  this  specific  duty.  For  conversion  moves 
him  to  discharge  it,  first  of  all,  by  a  general  softening 
of  tlie  heart  and  the  excitement  of  benevolent  affec- 
tions. But  this,  though  indispensable,  is  not  enough. 
There  must  be  higher  motives  even,  to  secure  good 
will  and  charitable  acts  to  men.  There  must  be  love 
to  God  and  zeal  for  Christ,  as  the  grand  motives  even 
to  benevolent  exertion,  or  the  fruit  will  fail. 

But  we  may  go  still  further,  and  assign  a  more 
specific  principle  of  action  prompting  to  the  same  re- 
sult. This  is  gratitude  for  what  the  convert  has  him- 
self experienced.  You  may  possibly  remember  that, 
when  one  of  the  great  vessels  which  long  maintained 
a  constant  intercourse  between  the  old  world  and  the 
new,  had  weathered  what  was  looked  upon  as  an  ex- 
traordinary storm,  the  passengers  resolved  to  testify 
their  gratitude  to  God  by  establishing  a  fund  for  the 
relief  of  shipwrecked  seamen  and  their  families.  The 
principle  involved  in  this  proceeding  was  a  sound 
one,  and  the  feeling  altogether  natural.  True  thank- 
fulness invariably  creates  the  desire  of  requital ;  and, 
as  God  cannot  be  its  object,  it  is  natural  to  spend  it 
upon  others,  with  a  view,  however,  to  glorify,  please, 
and  honor  him.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  a 
large  proportion  of  the  \:urest  charities  of  life  are  di- 
rectly prompted  by  the  gratitude  of  those  who  prac- 
tise them.  The  mere  conviction  of  right  and  sense 
of  obligation  would  do  nothing  ;  mere  benevolence  to 
others  would  do  little  ;  and  even  a  general  desire  to 
perform  the  will  of  God  and  glorify  his  name  M'ould 


LUKE  22,  32.  '  340 

do  less  than  it  does,  without  the  operation  of  that  spe- 
cial motive  recognized  in  Christ's  argumentative  com- 
mand :  "  Freely  ye  have  received,  freely  give." 

From  all  this  it  sufficiently  appears  that  true  con- 
version, whether  primary  or  secondary,  tends  to  the 
strengthening  of  others,  by  enabling,  by  obliging,  by 
disposing  the  convert  to  seek  the  rescue  of  the  lost, 
and  the  deliverance  of  those  in  danger.  This  view  of 
the  subject  sets  before  us  an  important  test  of  character 
and  an  invaluable  means  of  usefulness.  If  it  be  true 
that  conversion  always  more  or  less  disposes  to  the 
strengthening  of  others,  it  would  seem  to  follow,  that 
wherever  there  is  no  sense  of  the  obligation,  much 
less  any  strong  desire  to  discharge  it,  there  is  reason 
to  suspect  that  we  have  never  been  converted,  or  at  least 
that  we  need  to  be  converted  again.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  so  large  a  part  of  the  efficient  charities  of  life 
depends  upon  the  influence  excited  by  conversion  on 
the  convert  himself,  we  may  infer  that  the  spiritual  la- 
bours of  the  unconverted  are  of  little  worth.  This  is  a 
general  proposition,  but  admits  of  a  specific  application 
to  the  labours  of  the  ministry.  Without  this,  genius, 
learning,  eloquence,  may  please,  they  may  improve, 
they  may  even  in  a  higher  sense  do  good,  but  how  can 
we  expect  them  to  be  savingly  efi'ectual,  to  strengthen 
those  who  are  ready  to  perish,  to  confirm  in  good,  and 
to  deliver  or  protect  from  evil?  •  Perhaps  much  of 
the  unfruitfulness  which  we  lament,  proceeds  directly 
from  this  very  cause.  How  shall  we  strengthen  our 
brethren,  unless  we  are  converted  ?  This  applies  even 
to  declension  and  backsliding — how  much  more  to 
sheer  impenitence  and  unbelief.     The  consciousness. 


350  SERMONS. 

or  even  tlie  well-gi  onnded  appreliension  of  this  grand 
defect  must  paralyze  exertion.  Self-deception  no  less 
certainly  must  make  it  ineffectual.  N'ay,  the  very  re- 
collection of  conversion  as  a  past  event,  perhaps  a  dis- 
tant one,  although  correct,  may  have  the  same  result 
by  hindering  the  soul  from  turning  back  to  God,  how- 
ever gross  and  long-continued  its  declensions.  Instead 
of  seeking  re-conversion  by  renewed  acts  of  repent- 
ance, faith,  and  love,  we  linger  on  in  a  condition  half 
dependant,  half  presumptuous,  in  expectation  of  some 
special  and  extraordinary  grace  adapted  to  the  case 
of  "  Christians,"  as  distinguished  from  those  whom  we 
are  wont  to  call  "  impenitent  sinners."  TVe  forget 
that  every  interru]3tion  of  repentance  makes  ourselves 
impenitent ;  that  every  lapse  of  faith  converts  us  so 
far  into  unbelievers ;  and  that  from  this  new  state  of 
impenitence  and  unbelief,  the  way  of  restoration  and 
recovery  is  the  same  as  from  the  old. 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  effect  of  this  mistake, 
whenever  it  exists,  in  rendering  abortive  the  most 
zealous  efforts  even  of  men  really  converted,  but  es- 
tranged from  their  first  love  and  their  first  works 
through  the  deceitfulness  of  sin.  -Through  the  Sa- 
viour's intercession,  their  faith  does  not  fail ;  but 
they  must  be  converted  before  they  can  confirm  their 
brethren.  Here,  then,  is  the  test,  and  here  the 
means  before  referred  to.  Would  you  prove  yourself 
converted?  Strengthen  the  brethren.  AVould  you 
strengthen  the  brethren  ?  Be  converted.  This  last  is 
indeed  the  best  and  safest  course  in  any  case.  "We 
may  err  in  our  attempts  to  strengthen  the  brethren, 
but  we  cannot  err  in  aiming  at  our  own  conversion. 


LUKE  22,  32.  351 

Let  us  secure  this,  and  tlie  rest  will  follow.  We  have 
everj  inducement,  personal  and  public,  to  seek  re- 
conversion. There  are  always  some  conversions  going 
on  among  us  and  around  us.  The  wicked  are  becom- 
ing worse.  The  Christian,  if  not  growing,  is  declin 
ing.  In  the  world  one  form  of  sin  is  constantly 
exchanging  for  another.  There  are  many  conversions^ 
from  ambition  to  avarice,  and  from  pleasure  to  ambi- 
tion. And  even  in  countries  professedly  religious, 
there  is  scarcely  any  interruption  of  the  same  myste- 
rious process. 

The  best  preventive  of  these  retrograde  conver- 
sions, is  conversion  in  the  right  direction,  turning 
continually  back  to  him  from  whom  we  have  revolted. 
Let  not  this  be  hindered  by  the  evidence  of  former 
conversion.  As  long  as  there  is  sin,  there  will  be 
something  to  turn  from.  And,  thanks  be  to  God, 
there  is  always  something  to  turn  to.  While  we 
change.  He  remains  the  same.  Amidst  all  our  fluc- 
tuations, the  capricious  ebb  and  flow  of  our  afiections, 
there  is  no  change  or  motion  in  the  everlasting  rock 
against  which  they  are  beating.  Through  all  our  vi- 
cissitudes of  light  and  darkness,  night  and  morning, 
■noon  and  twilight,  lightning  and  eclipse,  he  still  re- 
mains the  Father  of  Lights,  with  whom  is  no  va- 
riableness, neither  shadow  of  turning.  Even  when 
we  wander  farthest,  if  we  look  back,  we  still  see  him 
where  he  was.  It  is  this  sublime  immutability  and 
constancy  that  furnishes  a  basis  for  our  hopes.  If  at 
every  fresh  return  to  God,  we  found  some  change  in 
the  attributes  of  his  nature,  or  in  the  offers  of  his  gos- 
pel ;  if  we  had  to  make  acquaintance  with  another 


352  SERMONS. 

Saviour,  and  to  seek  the  aid  of  an  nnknown  Spirit,  vre 
might  well  despair.  But,  thanks  be  to  God,  there  is 
always  something,  and  always  the  same  thing,  to  turn 
to,  and  the  same  altar,  the  same  laver,  the  same  mercy- 
seat,  the  same  Sovereign,  the  same  Saviour,  the  same 
Comforter — in  one  word,  the  same  Father,  Son,  and 
Spirit,  God  over  all  blessed  forever.  There  is  always 
something  to  turn  to ;  and  lastly,  there  is  always 
something  to  turn  for.  For  the  honour  of  Christ — 
he  may  be  glorified  in  our  growth  rather  than  in  our 
decay,  in  our  salvation  rather  than  our  ruin.  For 
ourselves — that  we  may  redeem  lost  time,  and  wipe 
off  the  reproach  which  we  have  justly  incurred  upon 
the  cause.  For  our  brethren — that  they  may  be 
strengthened ;  if  impenitent,  converted  ;  if  backslid- 
ing, reclaimed  ;  if  assailed,  confirmed. 

Let  us  give  ear,  then,  to  the  two  great  lessons 
which  the  text  afi'ords.  The  one  is.  Be  converted,  for 
the  first  time,  or  afresh.  And  oh !  when  thus  con- 
verted, Kemember  those  whom  you  have  left  behind. 
You  who  are  raised  up  by  the  great  Physician  from 
the  bed  of  spiritual  languishment,  do  not  forget  the 
sufierers  still  lying  there,  fevered,  or  palsied,  or  con- 
vulsed with  pain.  You  who  are  plucked  as  brands 
from  the  burning,  oh  remember  the  poor  victims  who 
are  still  asleep  beneath  the  curtain  of  that  stifling 
smoke,  and  with  that  horrid  glare  upon  their  eyelids, 
or  perhaps  just  aroused  to  a  benumbing  sense  of  their 
condition.  You  who  have  reached  the  shore  of  mercy 
from  that  scene  of  spiritual  shipwreck,  oh,  look  back 
upon  those  still  unconscious  victims,  lying  just  as  you 
lay  but  a  little  while  ago,  or  on  those  pallid  faces, 


LUKE  22,  32.  353 

mutely  pleading  for  deliverance,  or  those  hands  lifted 
up  above  the  surface  of  the  bubbling  waves,  before 
they  sink  forever.  When  you  go  hence,  you  will  go 
to  witness  just  such  scenes  as  this,  to  stand  upon  the 
wreck-strewed  shore,  and  there  see  thousands  perish, 
while  perhaps  you  may  be  able  to  save  one  !  But 
how  precious  even  that  one  in  the  sight  of  God  and 
holy  angels.  How  well  worthy  of  your  best  exertions 
and  most  fervent  prayers.  But  forget  not,  in  addition 
to  the  training  through  which  you  are  passing,  and 
which  claims  your  most  assiduous  attention  ;  oh,  for- 
get not  that  without  which,  this  must  be  forever  una- 
vailing ;  forget  not  to  prepare  your  hearts,  yourselves, 
for  future  toil  and  future  usefulness,  by  giving  present, 
constant  heed  to  the  first  great  commandment  of  the 
Saviour — "  Be  converted  ; "  and  to  the  second,  which 
is  like  unto  it — "  When  thou  art  converted,  strengthen 
thy  brethren." 


XIX. 

Luke  9,  CO. — Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead  ;  but  go  thou  and  preach 
the  kingdom  of  God. 

The  gospel  history  is  distinguished  from  all  others 
by  the  intrinsic  dignity  of  its  subject — the  sayings 
and  doings  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour.  In  such  a 
record,  if  inspired,  there  can  be  nothing  small  or  un- 
important. The  slightest  hint  or  trace  of  the  Ke- 
deemer's  words  and  deeds  is  precious  to  his  people  in 
all  ages.  And  yet  there  is  a  secret  disposition  to 
regard  these  books  as  only  fit  for  children,  and  to 
slight  tlie  gems  of  godlike  wisdom  wliich  are  scat- 
tered through  them — always  invaluable,  although 
sometimes,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  text  which  I  have 
read,  they  may  be  strange  and  enigmatical.  These 
remarkable  words  ai'e  recorded  by  two  of  the  evan- 
gelists— i.  <?.,  the  words  of  the  first  clause — and  in 
precisely  the  same  form,  which  shows  how  carefully 
the  apostolical  tradition  has  preserved  our  Saviour's 
very  words  there,  while  in  the  other  clause  the  two 
accounts  agree  only  in  substance.  According  to  both 
accounts,  our  Lord  said,  "Let  the  dead  bury  their 
dead ;"  but  according  to  Matthew,  he  began  by 
saying,  "  Follow  me ;"  according  to  Luke,  he  ended 


LUKE  9,  60.  355 

by  sayins:,  "Go  thou  and  preach  the  kingdom  of 
God."  Both  these  versions  may  be  literally  accurate, 
though  each  has  been  preserved  by  only  one  historian. 
Or  both  may  be  paraphrases,  giving  the  spirit,  not 
the  letter,  of  our  Lord's  reply.  Or  one  may  be  such 
a  paraphrase,  and  the  other  a  statement  of  the  words 
actually  uttered.  Upon  any  of  these  suppositions,  all 
of  which  are  natural  and  easy,  and  according  to 
analogy  and  usage,  the  consistency  of  the  accounts 
may  be  completely  vindicated.  At  the  same  time, 
this  diversity,  however  it  may  be  explained,  renders 
still  more  striking  the  exact  agreement  of  the 
gospels  in  the  other  Avords.  Whatever  else  our  Saviour 
may  have  said  besides,  he  certainly  said,  "  Let  the 
dead  bury  their  (own)  dead." 

There  is  also  a  remarkable  agreement  and  diver- 
sity in  the  accompanying  circumstances,  as  related 
bj  the  two  evangelists.  Both  connect  this  little 
dialogue,  in  which  the  text  occurs,  with  another  of 
the  same  kind,  and  both  put  this  other  first.  But 
Luke  adds  a  third  of  the  very  same  description,  which 
Matthew  does  not  give  at  all.  They  also  agree  in  rep- 
resenting these  brief  conversations  as  taking  place 
upon, the  road,  or  as  our  Lord  was  setting  out  upon  a 
journey.  Luke  merely  says,  as  they  went  in  the  way, 
or  were  proceeding  on  their  journey,  without  speci- 
fying time  or  place.  Li  the  absence  of  all  other  in- 
formation, it  would  be  most  natural  to  understand 
him  as  referring  to  the  immediately  preceding  con- 
text, which  is  generally  supposed  to  record  the  com- 
mencement of  our  Lord's  last  journey  to  Jerusalem. 
But  observe,  the  writer  does  not  say  so ;  it  is  a  mere 


366  SERMONS. 

inference,  and  more  than  half,  perhaps  nine-tenths, 
of  the  alleged  variations  in  the  gospels,  have  arisen 
from  confomiding  mere  sequence  or  juxtaposition  in 
tlie  record,  with  exact  or  immediate  chronological 
succession.  All  that  Luke  says  is,  that  they  were 
journeying,  or  on  their  way. 

If  this  were  all  we  knew  about  it,  we  might  Avell 
infer  that  it  was  on  the  journey  previously  mentioned. 
But  that  inference  is  gone  when  Matthew  tells  us  that 
this  very  conversation  happened  at  an  earlier  period 
of  Christ's  ministry,  when  he  was  just  embarking  on 
that  voyage  across  the  sea  of  Galilee,  which  furnished 
the  occasion  of  a  miracle,  evincing,  for  the  first  time, 
his  dominion  over  nature  and  the  elements,  as  well  as 
over  demons  and  diseases.  It  was  just  before  the 
stilling  of  the  storm  that  Matthew  places  this  occur- 
rence ;  and  as  Luke's  expressions  are  entirely  indefi- 
nite, those  of  Matthew  must  of  course  determine  the 
chronology,  not  in  opposition  to  Luke's  statement,  or 
even  in  correction  of  it,  but  in  addition  to  it,  as  a  sup- 
plement or  specification. 

This  view  of  the  matter  iiivolves  no  invidious  dis- 
tinction between  Luke  and  MatthcM",  as  more  or  less 
exact  or  complete  in  their  statements,  because  Luke, 
in  other  cases,  supplies  facts  and  incidentis  omitted  by 
Matthew,  and  in  this  very  case,  it  is  only  by  a  ref- 
erence to  Mark — who  does  not  give  the  dialogues  at 
all,  but  does  give  what  precedes  and  follows — it  is 
only  by  a  reference  to  this  third  witness,  that  we 
learn  with  certainty  that  all  this  happened  on  the 
very  day  when  Christ  uttered  that  remarkable  series 
of  parables  beginning  with  the  sower,  or  at  least  a 


LUKE  9,  60.  357 

part  of  them.  Matthew  prefaces  the  dialjgne  from 
which  the  text  is  taken,  bj  saying  that  "  when  Jesus 
saw  great  multitudes  about  him,  he  gave  com- 
mandment to  depart  unto  the  other  side."  This,  taken 
by  itself,  might  seem  to  mean  that  what  follows  in 
the  narrative,  held  the  same  position  in  the  order  of 
events.  But  he  does  not  say  so,  and  he  may  mean 
that  it  happened  on  a  different  occasion,  when  he  saw 
a  multitude  around  him.  This  possibility  becomes  a 
certainty  when  Mark  informs  us  that  this  passage  of 
the  lake  took  place  "  on  the  same  day,  in  the  evening." 
This  is  perfectly  definite  as  to  the  time,  as  well  as  the 
events.  It  cannot  possibly  be  referred  to  any  other 
day  or  hour,  without  impugning  Mark's  authority. 
There  may  have  been  a  thousand  days  on  which  our 
Lord  found  himself  surrounded  by  a  crowd,  and 
escaped  them  by  embarking  on  the  lake ;  and  this  is 
all  that  Matthew  says.  "We  are,  therefore,  at  liberty, 
nay,  bound  to  fix  the  date  of  this  vague  statement,  in 
accordance  with  the  light  obtained  from  other  sources. 
Such  a  source  is  Mark,  and  such  a  light  is  his  ex- 
plicit statement  (4,  35),  that  the  voyage  across  Genes- 
saret,  in  Avliich  our  Saviour  stilled  the  storm,  occurred 
in  the  evening  of  the  same  day — what  day?  why  of 
course  the  day  of  which  he  had  just  been  speaking. 

ISTow  the  immediately  preceding  context  in  Mark's 
narrative  contains  a  series  of  parables,  beginning  with 
that  of  the  sower,  and  ending  with  that  of  the  mus- 
tard seed — the  same  series  that  occurs,  with  some  ad- 
ditions, in  the  13th  of  Matthew,  long  after  lie  has 
recorded  the  dialogue  from  which  the  text  is  taken, 
but  which  Mark,  without  giving  it  all,  assigns  to  its 


358  SERMONS. 

exact  place  in  the  order  of  events,  by  telling  ns  what 
happened  just  before  and  after.  Luke  merely  says 
that  they  were  on  the  way  ;  Matthew,  more  distinctly, 
on  their  way  to  cross  the  lake  ;  and  Mark,  still  more 
explicitly,  that  they  did  cross  it,  and  that  Christ  did 
still  the  storm,  upon  the  evening  of  the  same  day 
when  those  parables  were  uttered. 

This  is  only  one  out  of  a  multitude  of  instances  in 
which  one  of  the  gospels  gives  the  actual  order  of 
events,  while  another  gives  them  in  another  order 
suited  to  his  own  immediate  purpose.  This  deviation 
from  the  order  of  actual  occurrence  is  practised  by  the 
historians  of  every  age,  and  can  only  be  condemned 
as  unhistorical  by  those  who  do  not  know  the  differ- 
ence between  history  and  chronology,  or  rather  be- 
tween dates  and  the  events  to  which  they  owe  their 
value.  This  practice  is  peculiar  to  no  one  of  the 
evangelists,  but  common  to  them  all,  the  attempt  to 
make  one  of  them  the  standard  in  chronology,  to 
which  the  others  are  to  be  conformed,  having  proved 
as  impracticable  in  execution,  as  it  is  arbitrary  and 
gratuitous  in  theory.  As  Mark  here  furnishes  a  date 
which  neither  Luke  nor  Matthew  gives  us,  so  in  other 
cases  he  receives  from  them  the  same  additional 
specification.  The  reason  for  departing  from  the  rigid 
chronological  arrangement  is  not  always  the  same, 
nor  always  apparent;  but  the  one  most  generally  appli- 
cable is,  that  the  historian  means  to  put  together  facts 
resembling  one  another,  although  not  immediately 
successive  in  the  order  of  occurrence. 

Thus  Matthew,  in  recording  several  parables  that 
;M"ark   gives,  omits  one  and   adds  another,  as  more 


LUKE  9,  60.  359 

suited  to  Kis  purpose,  and  inserts  the  whole  series  at 
a  different  point  in  the  narrative  from  that  to  which 
it  properlj  or  rather  chronologically  belongs.  Thus, 
too,  Luke,  in  giving  the  two  dialogues  between  our 
Lord  and  two  new  followers,  which  Matthew  had  re- 
corded, not  only  adds  a  third,  which  may  have  hap- 
pened at  a  different  time,  but  places  the  whole  series 
in  a  different  connection,  yet  without  the  slightest 
intimation  as  to  time,  beyond  the  mere  juxtaposition, 
and  therefore  without  the  slightest  contradiction  to  the 
more  specific  statements  of  the  other  gospels. 

A  biographer  of  Washington,  who  wished  to  give 
that  great  man's  views  on  some  important  subject — 
say  the  subject  of  religion — not  only  might,  but  must, 
in  order  to  attain  his  end,  collect  the  -expression  of 
those  views  from  different  periods  of  his  history,  and 
give  them  seriatim,  without  any  risk  of  being  charged, 
as  the  evangelists  are  charged  by  shallow  and  dis- 
lionest  infidels,  with  contradicting  those  biographers 
who  give  the  very  same  facts  or  words,  not  together — 
having  no  such  purpose  to  answer  as  the  one  first 
mentioned — but  in  connection  with  the  times  and 
places  at  which  they  happened  or  were  uttered. 

Li  the  case  supposed,  too,  no  one  dreams  of  charg- 
ing the  respective  writers  with  mutual  contradiction, 
simply  because,  in  illustration  of  the  point  which 
they  are  proving,  they  may  differ  in  the  choice  or  the 
arrangement  of  their  proofs,  because  one  passes  over 
what  another  has  recorded,  or  repeats  a  certain  part 
of  it  without  the  rest.  When  will  the  same  principles 
and  modes  of  judgment  which  experience  and  com- 
mon sense  are  constantly  applying  on  the  bench  and 


360  SEKMONS. 

in  the  jury-box,  and  even  in  the  ordinary  ititercourse 
of  life,  be  fairly  extended  to  the  real  or  alleged  varia- 
tions  in  the  gos]3el  history  or  life  of  Christ? 

These  considerations  are  abundantly  sufficient  for 
my  purpose  in  proposing  them,  viz.,  that  of  showing 
that  the  question  as  of  time  and  order,  in  the  case  be- 
fore jis,  though  admitting  of  an  easy  and  satisfactory 
solution,  is  of  little  moment  as  an  element  of  sound 
interpretation.  Whether  these  three  replies  of  Christ 
were  uttered  on  the  same  or  on  different  occasions, 
whether  earlier  or  later  in  his  public  ministry,  are 
questions  which  can  have  no  effect,  either  upon  their 
intrinsic  value,  or  upon  their  mutual  connection,  which 
arises  from  their  common  bearing  on  a  single  subject 
of  great  practical  importance. 

It  is  also  a  subject  of  peculiar  interest  to  such  an 
audience  as  this — composed -almost  entirely  of  persons 
looking  forward  to  the  ministry,  or  actually  in  it — 
being  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  spirit  which 
should  actuate  those  seeking  this  high  office,  and  the 
principle  on  which  it  should  be  chosen  as  the  business 
of  a  lifetime,  and  on  which  its  claims  should  be  ad- 
justed, when  apparently  or  really  in  conflict  with  at- 
tractions or  demands  from  any  other  quarter.  This  is 
a  subject  which  can  never  be  wholly  inappropriate  to 
us,  and  on  which  it  may  sometimes  be  expedient  to 
let  Jesus  Christ  speak  in  his  own  way,  however  para- 
doxical or  strange  it  may  appear  when  compared  with 
the  maxims  of  worldly  wisdom,  or  even  with  those  of 
casuistical  theology. 

Let  this  be  my  apology  for  asking  your  attention 
to  this  text  and  context,  just  as  it  lies  upon  the  face  of 


LUKE  9,  60.  3gJ 

Scripture,  or  with  only  such  departures  from  the  form, 
as  may  render  its  consideration  more  convenient  and 
more  practically  useful.  In  order  to  secure  all  the 
light  which  the  connection  can  afford  to  the  obscure 
words  of  the  text,  I  shall  include  in  my  j^roposed  ex- 
amination all  the  similar  or  homogeneous  cases  here 
referred  to,  whether  by  one  of  the  evangelists  or  both. 
At  the  very  threshold  we  are  met,  however,  by  a 
striking  instance  of  the  way  in  which  the  gospels  mu- 
tually specify  and  supplement  each  other. 

The  first  case  mentioned,  both  by  Luke  and  Mat- 
thew, is  that  of  one  who  volunteered  to  follow  Christ 
wherever  he  should  go.  Besides  the  unimportant  va- 
riation in  the  title,  by  which  this  man  addressed  him, 
and  which  Matthew  gives  as  Master  or  Teacher,  Luke, 
as  Sir  or  Lord,  there  is  another  more  material  and  in- 
teresting difference,  though  not  the  slightest  discrep- 
ance or  contradiction,  the  difference  being  only  in  the 
degree  of  definiteness  and  precision.  Luke's  account, 
by  itself,  might  suggest  the  idea,  that  this  volunteer 
disciple  was  an  ordinary  man,  of  little  knowledge  or 
intelligence,  and  his  proposal  a  vague  offer  of  disci- 
pleship  in  general,  without  reference  to  any  special  or 
official  service.  Both  these  impressions,  although 
perfectly  legitimate  and  natural,  if  we  had  only  Luke's 
description,  are  removed  by  Matthew's  statement, 
that  this  "  certain  man,"  of  whom  Luke  speaks,  was 
a  scribe,  or  literally,  "one  scribe," — an  unusual  ex- 
pression, which  may  either  mean  a  certain  individual 
of  that  class,  or  more  definitely,  one  of  the  scribes, 
known  to  have  been  present  then  and  the^-f^.  Re- 
membering, as  we  should  dc,  whenever  sc- 

VOL.  I. — 16 


362  SERMONS. 

mentioned,  that  tliey  were  not  clerks  or  secretaries; 
nor  simple  copyists  of  tlie  law,  but  its  official  conser- 
vators and  ^professional  expounders — the  successors  of 
Ezra,  withoat  his  inspiration,  but  aspiring  to  the  same 
high  trust  of  guarding  the  Old  Testament  canon, 
which  he  closed,  from  mutilation  and  corruption,  and 
unauthorized  addition  ;  yes,  and  recognized  by  Christ 
himself  as  the  legitimate  interpreters  of  Moses,  al- 
though grossly  inconsistent  in  their  lives,  and  forming 
a  part,  either  collectively  or  representatively,  of  the 
Sanhedrim,  the  great  national  presbytery  or  senate — 
you  will  see,  at  once,  that  this  was  no  fortuitous  or 
vague  proposal,  from  an  unknown  or  unimportant 
person,  to  enrol  himself  as  one  of  our  Lord's  followers — 
as  multitudes  were,  no  doubt,  doing  every  day — but 
an  extraordinary  overture,  of  which  there  seems  to 
have  been  few  examples,  from  an  educated  student 
and  interpreter  of  Scripture,  to  assume  the  same  posi- 
tion in  the  new  religion  that  he  held  already  in  the  old ; 
in  other  words,  it  was  an  offer  to  become  what  Christ 
himself  is  elsewhere  said  to  have  described  as  "  a  scribe 
instructed,  or  discipled,  into  and  unto,  i.  e.,  into  the  fel- 
lowship, and  for  the  service  of,  the  new  dispensation  or 
kingdom  of  heaven,"  Matthew  13,  52;  and  that  not 
merely  upon  certain  terms,  or  in  a  certain  place,  to  be 
selected  by  the  oiferer,  but  wherever  he,  whom  by 
this  act  he  owns  as  the  Messiah,  should  be  pleased  to 
lead  the  way.  Upon  every  principle  of  worldly  wis- 
dom, or  of  selfish  policy,  or  even  of  what  some  regard 
as  Christian  prudence,  how  would  this  offer  have  been 
received  and  answered?  as  a  flattering  compliment  ? 
a   condescension  ?    a  remarkable  example  of  distin- 


J 


LUKE  i,  GO.  363 

guislied  gifts  and  lofty  station  laid  upon  the  altar  of 
religion,  and  entitled  therefore  to  a  high  place  in  the 
synagogue  or  church,  and  to  a  grateful  recognition, 
even  at  the  hands,  and  from  the  lips,  of  Christ  him- 
self? 

With  such  prepossessions  and  anticipations  of  our 
Lord's  reply  to  this  attractive  offer,  how  should  we, 
and  how  may  some  of  his  attendants  upon  that  day, 
have  been  shocked  and  startled,  b}'"  its  seeming  harsh- 
ness and  irrelevance  ?  Instead  of  thanks,  instead  of 
praise,  instead  of  courtly  acquiescence,  and  a  graceful 
welcome,  the  poor  scribe  gets  nothing  in  return  for 
his  proposal,  but  that  wild  and  melancholy  sentence, 
which  has  ever  since  been  ringing  in  the  ears  of  all 
who  read  or  hear  the  gospel,  like  the  burden  of  some 
funeral  song,  a  snatch  of  some  unearthly  chant  by 
"  airy  tongues,  that  syllable  men's  names  on  sands,  and 
shores,  and  desert  wildernesses  " — "  Foxes  have  holes, 
and  birds  of  the  air  have  nests  ;  but  the  Son  of  man 
hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head." 

Sublimely  touching  as  the  weakest  intellect  and 
meanest  taste  must  feel  these  words  to  be,  consider  ed 
in  themselves,  how  strange  do  they  appear  to  most, 
considered  as  an  answer.  How  evasive,  incoherent, 
and  unmeaning  have  they  been  declared  to  be  by 
many  a  pedantic  critic !  Yet  the  world  has  never 
heard,  and  the  records  of  the  world  do  not  contain 
a  more  direct,  conclusive,  and  exhaustive  answer — not 
to  the  scribe's  words;  there  is  the  error  that  gives 
birth  to  all  these  false  and  foolish  judgments,  of  which 
every  one  of  us  has  had  his  share — not  to  his  words, 
but  to  his  thoughts,  his  wishes ;   those   desires  and 


364  SERMONS. 

purposes  wliicli  lay  so  closely  coiled  about  Ms  very 
heart  that  he  may  have  had  no  clear  view  of  them 
himself.  ISTot  to  his  lips,  or  to  his  eye,  or  to  his  ear, 
but  to  his  inmost  soul,  and  to  the  hidden  core  of  his 
corrupt  affections,  to  his  proud  conceit  and  secular 
ambition,  to  his  love  of  ease,  and  fame,  and  power,  to 
his  sordid,  carnal,  and  concealed  hope  of  distinction 
and  enjoyment  in  the  kingdom  of  this  untaught 
teacher,  this  unbribed  benefactor,  this  amazing,  won- 
derworking Son  of  Man  ;  to  these,  to  all  these,  as 
seen  by  an  omniscient  eye  to  constitute  the  man,  did 
that  unsparing,  unexpected  answer  speak  in  articu- 
late annihilating  thunder. 

But  even  in  attempting  to  do  feeble  justice  to  our 
Master's  greatness  upon  this  occasion,  let  us  not  be 
led  astray  by  any  false  interpretation  of  his  language, 
however  natural,  however  common.  Let  us  not  im- 
pair its  simple  grandeur  by  forcing  quaint  conceits 
upon  it,  by  supposing  an  allusion,  in  the  foxes  and 
the  birds,  which  he  seems  almost  to  envy,  to  the  cun- 
nino:  or  the  other  evil  attributes  of  those  who  hated 
him,  but  give  the  expressions  their  most  obvious  im- 
port, as  descriptive  of  familiar  living  things,  perhaps 
presented  at  the  moment  to  the  eyes  of  those  who 
heard  him,  or  at  least  to  their  memory  and  imagina- 
tion. Nor  let  us  rush  into  the  opposite  extreme  of 
giving  to  the  words  that  follow  too  obvious  and  easy 
an  interpretation,  as  expressive  of  extreme  want  and 
privation,  not  only  of  the  luxuries  and  comforts,  but 
of  the  necessary  means  of  life.  Such  a  description 
would  have  been  at  variance  with  the  known  facts  of 
our  Saviour's  history,  the  apparent  circumstances  of 


LUKE  9,  60.  365 

Ms  nearest  relatives  and  friends,  including  some  at 
least  of  liis  apostles,  and  still  more  of  his  disciples  in 
the  wider  sense,  the  various  comfortable  liomes  in 
which  we  find  him  a  most  welcome  guest,  and  the  ex- 
treme devotion  of  a  few  choice  spirits,  whose  sub- 
stance and  whose  lives  existed  only  for  his  service, 
and  among  whom,  while  none  were  poor,  one  was 
connected  with  the  royal  household.  Tlie  glory  of 
the  Saviour  stands  in  no  need  of  romantic  or  poetical 
embellishment.  Starvation,  penury,  formed  no  part 
of  his  suflerings,  though  often  gloried  in  as  chief 
points  of  resemblance  by  ascetic  bearers  of  his  cross. 
His  food  and  raiment  seem  to  have  been  those  of  the 
society  in  which  he  lived,  and  he  expressly  describes 
himself  as  "  eating  and  drinking  "  with  his  neighbours, 
in  contrast  with  the  austere  life  of  his  forerunner,  who 
came  "  neither  eating  nor  drinking,"  and  was  there- 
fore thought  to  have  a  devil. 

The  idea  of  extreme  want  and  a  state  of  beggary, 
is  not  suggested  by  his  words  on  the  occasion  now 
before  us.  To  the  scribe's  ambitious  expectations  of 
a  long  triumphant  reign  of  the  Messiah  upon  earth,  and 
of  distinction  and  enjoyment  in  his  service,  he  opposes 
that  of  a  mere  transient  visit  and  unsettled  life ;  the 
absence,  not  of  ordinary  food  and  shelter,  but  of  a 
permanent  and  settled  home,  much  more  of  a  luxu- 
rious court  and  palace,  using  the  very  figure  long  be- 
fore employed  by  Tiberius  Gracchus,  when  complain- 
ing that  the  champions  of  Italian  freedom  were 
compelled  to  lead  a  homeless  life,  and  flit  from  place 
to  place,  while  the  very  beasts  that  ravaged  Italy  had 
lairs  and  pasture-grounds.     The  spirit  of  our  Lord's 


2QQ  SERMONS. 

reply  to  tliis  deceived  or  hypocritical  pretender  is : 
"  Yon  know  not  what  yon  ask  or  what  yon  offer ;  you 
are  utterly  mistaken  in  relation  to  my  presence  upon 
earth  and  its  design.  Instead  of  being  here,  as  yon 
imagine,  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  temporal 
and  worldly  kingdom,  I  am  only  here  to  die  and  rise 
again.  I  am  here,  not  as  a  conqueror  or  a  sovereign, 
but  as  a  servant  and  a  stranger,  less  at  home  than 
even  the  inferior  animals  ;  "  the  foxes  have  holes,  and 
the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests,"  &c. 

The  next  place,  both  in  Luke  and  Matthew,  is  as- 
signed to  the  discourse  from  which  the  text  is  taken  ; 
but  it  may  be  more  convenient  to  reserve  this  till  we 
have  considered  the  additional  case  found  in  Luke, 
and  closing  his  account  of  the  whole  matter.  From 
this  we  learn  that,  on  the  same  occasion,  or  one  like 
it,  another  person  offered  to  follow  him,  but  asked 
permission  first  to  bid  farewell  to  those  at  home. 
This  request  was  so  much  like  that  of  Elisha  to 
Elijah,  when  he  called  him  from  the  plough  to  the 
prophetic  office,  that  our  Lord,  with  a  beautiful  ac- 
commodation in  the  form  of  his  reply  to  this  designed 
or  undesigned  allusion,  speaks  of  his  own  service  un- 
der the  figure  of  husbandry  or  plowing,  recommended 
also  by  the  agricultural  employments  of  the  multi- 
tude before  whom  he  was  speaking,  and  perhaps  sug- 
gested, as  so  many  of  his  parables  are  thought  to  have 
been,  by  the  sight  of  some  one  Actually  so  employed. 
That  sight,  or  even  recollection,  was  sufficient  to 
suggest  the  necessity  of  close  attention,  undivided 
thoughts,  and  undiverted  eyes,  in  order  to  accomplish 
a  straight  furrow.    The  man,  who  with  his  hand  upon 


LUKE  9,  60.  367 

tlie  plougli  for  siicli  a  purpose,  could  look  idly  back,  in 
sport  or  in  stupidity,  would  be  pronounced  by  every 
ploughman  present,  utterly  unfit  for  that  humble  but 
important  duty.  Here  too,  as  in  the  first  case,  the  reply 
is  to  the  thoughts,  or  to  the  state  of  mind ;  the  charac- 
ter or  disposition,  rather  than  the  language.  And  to 
those  the  answer  is  adjusted ;  having  reference,  in 
this  case,  not  to  proud  ambitious  hopes,  but  to  dis- 
tracted views,  and  a  divided  heart-wish,  and  purpose 
to  serve  Christ,  combined  with  a  presumptuous  de- 
sire to  continue  the  enjoyment  of  what  ought  to  have 
been  sacrificed  or  left  behind  by  one  who  sought  his 
service.  To  this  very  difterent,  but  perhaps  more 
common  class  of  false  professors  and  unfaithful  ser- 
vants, our  Lord  spoke  once  for  all  and  forever,  when 
he  said  in  answer  to  that  new  proposal,  "  'No  man, 
having  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  and  looking  back, 
is  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God," 

There  is,  however,  still  another  question  raised  and 
answered  in  these  few  words ;  that  of  the  comparative 
or  relative  demands  of  natural  afi^ection,  duty  and  re- 
gard to  relatives  and  friends,  when  brought  into  real 
or  apparent  conflict  with  the  service  of  our  Lord,  or 
with  his  positive  commands.  But  this  is  a  subject 
still  more  clearly  and  impressively  presented  in  the 
third  reply  from  which  the  text  is  taken.  The  person 
speaking  and  addressed  in  this  case  is  by  Luke  simply 
called  "  another,"  but  by  Matthew,  "  another  of  his 
disciples  ;  "  in  the  wide  sense  of  one  who  was  already 
a  believer  in  our  Lord's  Messiahship,  and  a  receiver 
of  his  doctrine,  but  desired  to  sustain  a  more  intimate 
relation  to  him,  as  an  attendant  on  his  person,  and  a 


3G8  SERMONS. 

messenger  to  cany  his  commands  to  otLers.  Al 
tlioiigli  mere  sequence  or  juxtaposition,  as  we  lia"ve 
already''  seen,  is  no  sure  sign  of  chronological  succes- 
sion, it  is  not  perhaps  unmeaning  or  fortuitous,  that 
this  whole  narrative  in  Luke  immediately  precedes 
the  mission  of  the  seventy  disciples,  nor  entirely  im- 
probable that  these  offers  of  service  had  respect  to 
that  important  mission.  If  so,  this  renders  it  still 
more  certain  that  the  propositions  and  replies  in  all 
the  cases,  referred,  as  they  unquestionably  did  in  one, 
not  merely  to  discipleship  in  general,  but  to  preach- 
ing in  particular.  If  any  thing  were  needed,  this 
would  seem  to  be  sufficient,  to  awaken  our  attention 
to  a  passage,  so  directly  bearing,  not  on  Christian 
character  only,  but  on  the  very  office  which  we  seek 
or  hold  already. 

In  one  point,  Luke  is  here  more  definite  than 
Matthew,  taking  up  the  conversation  at  an  earlier 
stage,  and  showing  tliat  the  words  which  Matthew 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  this  disciple  were  occasioned 
by  an  express  command  from  Christ  to  follow  him, 
{.  e.  to  attend  upon  his  person,  with  a  view  to  being 
sent  out  by  him.  The  same  command  may  be  im- 
,  plied,  though  not  expressed,  in  one  or  both  the  other 
cases.  Unless  it  be,  we  must  regard  the  one  before 
us  as  a  more  direct  evasion  of  acknowledged  duty 
than  the  others,  where  the  proposition  seems  to  be  a 
voluntary  one,  and  not  in  answer  to  a  special  call. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  proposition  itself  is  not  uncon- 
ditional, as  in  the  first  case,  nor  on  the  condition  of  a 
simple  opportunity  of  bidding  farewell  to  friends  at 
home,  as  in  the  second,  but  tnrns  uj)on  a  still  more 


LUKE  'J,  60.  369 

solemn  and  affecting  duty,  that  of  burying  a  father ; 
not  of  waiting  upon  him  till  he  died,  as  some  inter- 
preters have  understood  it,  for  such  a  proposition 
would  have  been  absurd,  asking  to  wait  until  his  fath- 
er's death  before  he  followed  Christ  on  this  occasion. 
Nor  is  it  the  natural  meaning  of  the  words,  Let  me 
first  go  away  and  bury  my  father  ;  referring  just  as 
j^lainly  to  a  momentary  and  immediate  interruption 
as  the  following  request  to  bid  farewell  to  those  at 
home.  Even  this  has  sometimes  been  explained  as 
meaning  to  adjust  or  wind  up  one's  affau'S,  or  dispose 
of  one's  possessions  ;  but  the  only  natural  hypothesis, 
in  either  case,  is  that  which  concentrates  the  attention 
on  a  single  act,  and  one  connected  with  the  tenderest 
domestic  ties  and  personal  affections  ;  in  the  one  case, 
that  of  parting  from  the  nearest  living  friends,  and  in 
the  other,  that  of  burying  the  body  of  a  father. 

Here,  again,  a  different  answer  might  have  been 
expected,  not  by  policy  or  selfishness  alone,  but  by 
the  kindliest  sentiments  of  human  nature;  and  our 
Lord's  reply  may  therefore  seem  abrupt  and  harsh  to 
a  much  larger  and  more  elevated  class  than  those  who 
are  offended  by  his  former  answer.  Tlie  difficulty 
here  felt  has  betrayed  itself  in  exegetical  expedients 
to  impose  some  other  meaning  on  the  words  than  that 
which  can  be  gained  by  any  natural  interpretation. 
As  a  single  but  extreme  specimen  of  such  expedients, 
I  may  name  the  monstrous  supposition  that  the  dead 
first  mentioned  are  those  charged  with  the  burial  of 
the  dead,  so  that  our  Lord's  words  arc  only  a  consol- 
atory or  encouraging  assurance  that  this  sacred  duty 

VOL.  I. — 16* 


370 


SERMONS. 


would  not  be  neglected,  even  if  the  son  slionld  in- 
Btantly  obey  liis  call. 

To  the  same  class  may  be  referred  tbe  supposition 
tbat  bis  words  bave  reference  to  ceremonial  defile- 
ment, and  that  his  refusal  is  no  more  severe  than  that 
which  would  have  been  received  from  any  priest, 
whether  Jew  or  Gentile.  The  total  silence  of  the 
narrative  on  this  point,  and  the  inconsistency  of  such 
a  meaning  with  the  whole  spii'it  of  our  Lord's  instruc- 
tions, may  serve  as  a  sufficient  refutation  of  this  no- 
tion, and  of  every  other  which  supposes  the  permission 
to  have  been  withheld  on  any  other  ground  than  that 
suggested  in  the  accompanying  words,  viz.,  the  para- 
mount necessity  of  following  Christ  and  preaching  or 
proclaiming  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Of  the  enigmatical  words  "  Let  the  dead  bury  their 
dead,"  there  are  only  two  interpretations  which  ap- 
pear in  any  age  to  have  commanded  the  assent  of 
sober  and  judicious  minds  ;  and  of  these  two,  one  has 
always  had  so  great  a  majority  of  suffrages  that  it 
may  be  regarded  as  established  by  the  voice  of  the 
church  and  exegetical  tradition.  This  is  the  old  in- 
terpretation which  assumes  two  entirely  different 
senses  of  the  word  dead^  in  the  two  parts  of  the  sen- 
tence ;  the  first  figurative  or  spiritual,  the  second  lit- 
eral or  natural.  "  Let  those  dead  in  sin  bury  the 
bodies  of  the  naturally  dead."  Tliere  are  enough  of 
worldly,  unconverted  men  or  of  men  not  called  into 
my  immediate  service,  to  render  these  last  offices  to 
lifeless  bodies,  but  do  thou  go  and  j)reach  the  king- 
dom of  God. 

To  this  it  has  been  objected,  not  without  some 


I 


LUKE  9,  60.  371 

force,  that  the  very  assumption  of  a  double  sense 
"svithin  so  short  a  compass  is  not  to  be  assumed  with- 
out necessity,  and  also  that  the  sense  obtained  is  not 
entirely  satisfactory,  since  it  is  not  consistent  with  the 
letter  or  spii'it  of  Christianity,  to  devolve  such  duties 
on  the  unconverted,  to  the  exclusion  of  "  devout  men," 
such  as  carried  the  first  martjT  to  his  burial.  With- 
out pausing  now  to  shoAV  how  these  objections  may 
be  ans'svcred,  I  may  simply  state  that  they  have  led 
some  eminent,  though  few  interpreters,  to  give  the 
same  sense  to  the  word  dead  in  both  clauses,  and  to 
understand  the  whole  as  meaning,  "leave  the  dead 
to  bury  one  another."  This,  it  is  objected,  is  impos- 
sible ;  but  that  impossibility  is  looked  upon,  by  those 
who  take  this  view  as  constituting  the  whole  force 
and  j)oint  of  the  expression,  like  the  camel  passing 
through  the  eye  of  a  needle.  It  is  then  equivalent  to 
saying,  and  saying  in  the  boldest  and  the  strongest 
form,  "  If  necessary,  leave  the  dead  unburied,  but  at 
all  events,  obey  my  call  to  go  and  proclaim  the  kiug- 
dom  of  God." 

According  to  this  last  view  of  the  passage,  it  be- 
longs to  what  have  sometimes  been,  perhaps  improp- 
erly, described  as  the  'paradoxes  of  our  Lord's  instruc- 
tions ;  those  unexpected  and  sui-prising  forms  of 
speech,  by  which  he  first  awakens  the  attention  of 
his  hearers,  and  then  states  a  principle  or  rule  of 
action,  not  in  its  abstract  form,  nor  yet  in  application 
to  an  ordinary  case,  but  to  an  extreme  ease,  so  that" 
every  other  may  be  readily  disposed  of.  Tlius  instead 
of  laying  down  in  general  terms,  the  rule  of  charity 
or  Christian  love,  he  commanded   the  yomig  ruler, 


372  SERMONS. 

wliom  lie  saw  to  be  enamoured  of  his  wealth,  to  sell 
all  that  he  had  and  come  and  follow  him  ;  thus  show- 
ing him  at  once,  by  an  extreme  test,  where  his  weak- 
ness lay,  which  might  have  been  imtouched  by 
requisitions  of  another  kind  or  of  inferior  degree. 
So  too,  instead  of  giving  rules  for  the  mortification 
of  sin  in  ordinary  cases,  he  at  once  supposes  the  ex- 
treme case  of  a  choice  between  wilful  indulgence  and 
the  loss  of  a  limb,  and  teaches,  not  that  such  a  case 
is  likely  to  be  expected  to  occur,  much  less  that  we 
may  lawfully  produce  it,  but  that  if  it  did  occur,  we 
ought  to  be  prepared  to  sacrifice  the  body  to  the  soul. 
Instead  of  dealing  out  empirical  prescriptions  for  the 
regulation  of  our  duties  and  regards  to  God  and  man 
respectively,  he  assumes  abruptly  the  extreme  case  of 
our  love  to  God  excluding  or  forbidding  that  to  any 
relative,  however  near  or  dear,  and  then  requires  his 
followers,  in  that  case,  not  only  to  prefer  God,  but  to 
HATE  even  father  or  mother,  l^ot  that  the  case  itself 
is  one  to  be  expected,  but  because  the  principle  of 
paramount  aftection  to  the  Saviour  reaches  even  such 
a  case,  however  rare  and  unexampled,  and  must  there- 
fore of  course  cover  every  other,  just  as  every  Chris- 
tian at  the  present  day  is  bound  to  suffer  martyrdom 
rather  than  deny  Christ,  although  actual  martyrdom 
has  been  unknown,  in  most  parts  of  the  earth,  for 
ages. 

This  seems  to  me  to  be  the  true  key  to  the  enig- 
mas of  our  Saviour's  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  to  the 
fallacies  by  which  so  many  Christian  men  have  been 
seduced  into  the  eflbrt  to  convert  the  extreme  cases 
thus  employed  into  formal  rules  of  ordinary  conduct. 


LUKE  9,  60.  373 

In  the  case  before  lis,  the  same  principle  would  lead 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  Christian  should  be  willing 
and  prepared  to  leave  his  dearest  dead  unburied,  or 
to  slight  any  other  tender  natural  affection,  the  in- 
dulgence of  which  would  be  in  conflict  with  a  plain 
command  or  call  of  God,  but  not  that  such  a  conflict 
commonly  exists,  or  may  be  brought  about  at  plea- 
sure, which  so  far  from  being  pleasing  in  the  sight  of 
God,  is  really  the  sin  committed  by  the  hypocrites 
who  said,  "  Corban,"  when  they  ought  to  have  sup- 
plied the  wants  of  their  dependent  parents.  These 
are  the  grounds  on  which  the  literal  intei'pretation  of 
the  words  has  been  defended  and  explained,  but  as  I 
said  before,  almost  the  whole  weight  of  authority  and 
long  prescription  is  in  favour  of  the  other  explanation, 
which  requires  the  follower,  and  especially  the  minis- 
ter of  Christ  to  leave  all  natural  attentions,  even  the 
most  tender  duties  of  affection,  to  the  men  of  this 
world,  when  they  would  conflict  with  his  obedience 
to  the  call  of  God. 

As  topics  of  reflection  on  this  interesting  passage, 
I  suo-ciest 

1.  That  there  is  still  a  special  call  of  Christ 
to  individuals,  not  only  to  believe  in  him,  but  to 
preach  his  kingdom.  Without  attempting  to  define 
this  call  at  present,  I  may  observe,  that  it  is  neither 
miraculous  on  one  hand,  nor  a  matter  of  business  cal- 
culation on  the  other,  but  a  complete  judgment  or 
conclusion  to  which  various  elements  contribute,  such 
as  intellectual  and  physical  capacity,  without  which 
a  call  is  inconceivable  ;  providential  facilities  and  op- 
portunities,  opening    the  way  to   this  employment 


374  SERMONS. 

more  than  to  all  others  ;  the  judgment  and  desire  of 
others,  and  especially  of  those  best  qualified,  bj  char- 
acter and  situation,  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  case. 
I  might  add  a  desire  for  the  work,  which,  in  a  certain 
sense  is  certainly  included  in  a  call,  but  which  is  apt 
to  be  confounded  with  a  mere  liking  for  the  outward 
part  of  the  profession,  for  example  with  that  mania 
for  preaching  which  is  sometimes  found  in  grossly 
wicked  men,  and  has  been  known  to  follow  them,  not 
only  to  their  haunts  of  vice,  but  to  the  prison  and  the 
madhouse.  There  is  also  a  desire  which  results  from 
early  habit  and  association,  the  known  wish,  of  pa- 
rents, pastors,  and  other  friends,  or  the  fixed  invet- 
erate habit  of  regarding  this  as  a  man's  chosen  calling, 
even  Avhen  every  evidence  of  piety  is  wanting.  The 
desire  which  can  be  referred  to  any  of  these  causes  is 
entirely  distinct  from  that  which  God  j)roduces  in  the 
heart  of  his  true  servants,  as  a  part  of  their  vocation 
to  the  ministry. 

2.  This  vocation,  where  it  really  exists,  is  para- 
mount to  every  personal  and  selfish  j)lan,  to  every 
natural  affection,  even  the  most  tender,  which,  con- 
flicts with  it. 

3.  This  conflict  is  not  usually  unavoidable,  though 
often  so  regarded  by  fanatics.  The  flrst  duty  of  the 
Christian  is  not  to  desire  or  create,  but  to  avoid  it ; 
but  if  unavoidable,  his  next  is  to  obey  God  rather 
than  man. 

4.  Our  Saviour  did  not  deal  indiscriminately  with 
all  cases  of  desire  to  enter  his  immediate  service. 
The  remark  is  at  least  as  old  as  Calvin,  that  in  this 
case  he  repelled  the  man  who  wanted  to  go  with  him 


LUKE  9,  60.  375 

everywhere,  and  urged  tlie  man  to  follow  liim  at 
once,  wlio  wanted  to  go  home  for  what  appeared  to 
be  most  necessary  purposes.  So  far  as  his  example 
is  a  gukle  to  ns  in  these  things,  we  are  bound  not  only 
to  persuade,  but  to  discourage  as  the  case  may  be. 

5.  There  is  no  more  danger  of  excluding  those 
whom  God  has  called  by  faithful  presentation  of  the^ 
whole  truth,  than  there  is  of  preventing  the  conversion 
of  his  chosen  ones,  by  showing  them  the  true  tests  of 
faith  and  repentance.  The  man  who  can  be  finally 
driven  back  in  this  way  ought  to  be  so  driven.  He 
whom  God  has  called  will  only  be  confirmed  in  his 
desire  and  resolution  by  such  warnings  against  self- 
deception,  though  he  may  pass  through  the  discipline 
of  painful  doubt  and  hesitation  for  a  season.  To  you, 
my  young  brethren,  whose  presence  here  to-day  is  a 
profession  that  you  believe  yourselves  called  of  God 
to  this  high  ofiice,  my  desire  and  prayer  is,  that  the 
Lord  would  speak  directly  as  he  sees  your  case  to 
need ;  that  if  any  of  you  are  anticipating  only  ease, 
and  honour,  and  enjoyment  of  a  selfish  nature  in  his 
service ;  though  you  honestly  believe  yourselves  pre- 
pared to  follow  him  wherever  he  may  lead  you,  he 
may  say  to  you  this  morning,  as  he  said  to  that  de- 
luded scribe  of  old,  "  the  foxes  have  holes,  and  birds 
of  the  air  have  nests  ;  but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not 
where  to  lay  his  head ; "  that  if  any  of  you,  although 
willing  and  desirous  to  engage  in  this  service,  have 
your  hearts  divided  between  it  and  that  which  you 
have  left,  the  business  or  the  i)lcasures  of  the  world, 
or  its  mere  natural  attachments  and  enjoyments,  you 
may  this  day  hear  him  say,  and  say  with  a  medicinal 


376  SERMONS. 

effect,  "  No  man  having  put  his  hand,  to  the  plough, 
and  looking  back,  is  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God." 
And  lastly,  that  if  even  one  among  jou  is  dis- 
tracted and  distressed  by  imaginary  obligations  to 
your  nearest  friends,  at  variance  -with  your  duty  to 
your  Lord  and  Master,  he  may  nerve  your  courage 
and  dispel  your  doubts,  by  saying  as  he  said  to  him 
whose  father  lay  imburied,  "  Let  the  dead  bury  their 
dead,  but  go  thou  and  preach  the  kingdom  of  God." 


XX. 

Mark  13,  3Y. — What  I  say  unto  you,  I  say  unto  all :  Watch! 

The  personal  ministiy  of  Christ  was  limited  to  one 
email  country.  On  two  occasions  only  do  we  read  of 
his  having  crossed  the  frontiers  of  Palestine.  The 
first  was  in  his  infancy,  when  he  was  carried  into 
Egypt,  to  escape  the  sanguinary  spite  of  Herod.  The 
second  was  in  later  life,  when  he  visited  the  coasts  of 
Tyre  and  Sidon  in  Phenicia,  and  there  wrought  a  mir- 
acle of  healing  on  the  daughter  of  a  Syrophenician 
woman,  and  in  compliance  with  her  urgent  prayer,  as 
if  to  show,  by  one  signal  action  of  his  public  life,  that 
he  came  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  Gentiles  as  well  as 
of  the  Jews.  With  these  exceptions,  his  whole  life 
was  passed  in  the  land  of  Israel ;  its  earlier  years 
chiefly  in  the  northern  part  called  Galilee ;  its  later 
years  partly  in  that  region,  partly  in  Judea,  partly 
beyond  Jordan. 

"We  read  repeatedly  in  Scripture,  that  his  fame 
was  spread,  not  only  through  these  provinces,  but  over 
the  surrounding  countries,  and  that  wherever  he  went, 
he  was  accompanied  or  followed  by  vast  multitudes. 
These  multitudes  were  no  doubt  always  changing,  as 


378  SERMONS. 

he  passed  from  one  part  of  the  country  to  another. 
There  is  reason  to  believe,  however,  that  a  large  num- 
ber followed  him  from  place  to  place,  forming  a  per- 
manent body  of  attendants.  These  were  influenced 
no  doubt  by  various  motives  ;  some  by  vague  curios- 
ity, and  a  desire  to  see  new  and  wonderful  perform- 
ances ;  some  by  a  desire  to  be  healed,  or  to  obtain 
healing  for  their  friends  ;  some  by  gratitude  for  such 
gifts  experienced  already ;  some  by  a  wish  to  be  in- 
structed ;  some  by  a  conviction  of  sin  and  a  desire  of 
salvation.  Those  who  were  governed  by  the  higher 
class  of  motives,  the  desire  of  instruction  and  salva- 
tion, may  be  comprehended  under  the  general  de- 
scription of  "  disciples,"  i.  e.  such  as  acknowledged 
Christ's  authority  and  received  his  doctrines. 

Out  of  this  undefined  and  shifting  body  of  dis- 
ciples he  selected  twelve,  that  they  might  constantly 
attend  him  or  be  sent  out  by  him.  These  were  called 
apostles.  But  even  among  these  we  read  of  three 
who  were  admitted  to  more  intimate  and  confidential 
intercourse,  as  appears  from  the  frequency  and  prom- 
inence with  which  their  names  are  mentioned  in  the 
gospel  history,  and  from  the  fact  that  they  accom- 
panied their  Master  upon  some  occasions  when  the 
rest  were  left  behind.  The  three  thus  specially  dis- 
tino-uished  were  Simon  Peter  and  the  two  sons  of 
Zebcdee,  James  and  John.  In  this  point  of  view  our 
Lord  appears  surrounded  by  a  succession  of  concentric 
circles  ;  first,  the  narrow  circle  of  his  confidential  fol- 
lowers, then  the  wider  circle  of  his  twelve  apostles, 
then  the  still  wider  circle  of  disciples,  beyond  which 
spreads  the  less,  defined  and  constant  circle  of  hia 


MARK  13,  37.  3'J'9 

licarers  and  S2)eetators,  like  a  circle  on  the  surface  of 
the  water  spreading  till  it  merges  in  the  smooth  face 
of  the  lake  or  stream. 

Corresponding  to  these  various  sets  of  hearers  is 
the  various  design  of  the  discourses  which  our  Lord 
addressed  to  them.  Some  were  intended  for  the  ear 
of  the  few  nearest  to  him,  some  for  the  whole  body  of 
apostles,  some  for  his  disciples  generallj,  some  for  the 
vast  mixed  multitude  who  happened  to  be  present. 
In  some  cases,  what  was  said  had  reference  to  the 
wants  of- his  contemporaries  generally,  not  of  those 
merely  whom  he  immediately  addressed.  Sometimes 
his  instructions  had  a  nniversal  application  to  all 
countries  and  all  ages.  Sometimes,  though  imme- 
diately adapted  to  one  purpose,  they  admitted  of  a 
wider  or  a  more  specific  apj)lication.  Thus  the  text 
has  reference  directly  to  the  downfall  of  the  Jewish 
nation,  and  to  the  dangers  in  which  Christ's  disciples 
were  to  be  involved.  It  was  against  these  dangers 
that  he  meant  to  warn  them.  But  the  warninii:  was 
applicable  to  the  case  of  all  then  living,  as  he  inti- 
mates himself,  by  adding,  what  I  say  unto  you  I  say 
unto  all. 

On  the  same  principle,  we  may  make  a  still  fur- 
ther application  of  the  precept  to  ourselves  and  to 
our  spiritual  dangers.  For  if  such  a  warning  was  ap- 
propriate in  reference  to  temporal  calamities  hoAvever 
fearful,  it  can  be  no  perversion  to  extend  it  to  perils 
no  less  real,  and  as  much  more  tremendous  as  the 
soul  is  more  important  than  the  body,  and  eternity 
than  time.  "We  need  not  therefore  hesitate  to  look 
upon  ourselves  as  comprehended  in  the  wide  scope  of 


380  SERMONS. 

our  Saviour's  exhortation,  tliough  addressed  to  his 
immediate  liearers,  "  What  I  say  unto  you,  I  say  nnto 
all.  Watch!  " 

Let  us  consider  then  the  duty  and  necessity  of 
watchfulness  in  reference  to  spiritual  dangers.  The 
exhortation  to  watch  may  be  resolved  into  two  others ; 
be  awake,  and  be  upon  your  guard.  The  last  neces- 
sarily implies  the  first.  -'No  one  can  be  upon  his 
guard  unless  he  is  awake :  but  the  converse  is  not 
true.  A  man  may  be  awake,  and  yet  not  on  his 
guard.     Let  us  therefore  consider  them  successively. 

And  first,  what  is  meant  by  spiritual  watchful- 
ness ?  Tliis  again  may  be  resolved  into  several  par- 
ticulars. In  the  first  place,  the  mind  must  be  awake, 
the  understanding,  the  rational  powers.  And  in  order 
to  this,  it  is  essential  that  the  powers  should  be  exer- 
cised ;  in  other  words,  that  the  man  should  think. 
There  is,  indeed,  a  sense  in  which  the  mind  must 
always  think.  Thought  is  inseparable  from  its  very 
being.  Li  another  sense,  which  although  less  philo- 
sophical is  equally  intelligible,  mind  may  be  said  not 
to  think.  Hence  the  familiar  terms,  unthinking, 
thoughtless,  and  the  like.  The  thing  required  is  not 
the  mere  possession  of  rational  fticulties,  but  their  use. 
The  man  must  think  in  earnest,  tliink  with  vigour, 
think  coherently.  Some  thinking  is  not  so  much  ac- 
tive as  passive,  not  so  much  an  exertion  as  an  indul- 
gence. Tliis  dreamy,  indolent  condition  of  the  soul  is 
the  lowest  stage  of  intellectual  life,  and  that  state  of 
opinion  must  be  morbid  and  corrupt  which  represents 
it  as  the  highest  mode  of  thought,  and  even  as  a  kind 
of  inspiration.     To  be  mentally  awake,  there  must 


MARK  13,  37.  381 

be  life,  sjDontaneous  action  and  coherence  in  the 
thoughts. 

But  this  is  not  enough.  Tiie  mind  may  be  awake 
in  this  sense,  and  yet  dreaming  in  another.  It  may 
act,  and  yet  the  world  in  which  it  acts  may  be  not 
the  present  but  another.  Some  minds  operate  too 
fast,  and  some  too  slow.  Some  men's  thoughts  are 
forever  in  advance  of  that  which  claims  their  present 
attention.  This  is  the  case  with  those  who  habitually 
dwell  upon  the  circumstances  of  our  future  being,  and 
attempt  to  discover  that  which  has  not  been  revealed, 
and  therefore  has  no  bearing  on  our  present  duties  or 
interests.  The  same  is  true  of  some  who  do  not  look 
so  far  ofi",  who  confine  themselves  to  this  life,  but  who 
constantly  anticipate  a  state  of  things  still  future,  and 
do  now  what  they  ought  to  do  hereafter.  On  the 
other  hand,  some  are  either  constitutionally  or  habit- 
ually slow ;  they  are  constantly  behindhand ;  they 
think,  but  think  too  late,  when  the  necessity  for  think- 
ing has  gone  by.  Both  these  mental  states  and  habits 
have  analogy  to  sleep  ;  the  first  to  the  condition  of 
the  fitful,  feverish,  visionary  dreamer,  the  last  to  that 
of  the  more  drowsy  slumberer. 

Both  however  are  asleep.  The  mind,  to  be  awake, 
must  not  only  think,  and  think  with  vigour  and  co- 
herence, but  think  seasonably  also.  Even  this  is  not 
enough.  This  may  be  done,  and  yet  the  mind  remain 
absorbed  in  spiritual  slumber.  For  what  can  vigour, 
coherence,  or  promptness  avail,  if  the  thoughts  are 
exercised  on  trifling  or  unimportant  objects.  IIow- 
ever  thoroughly  the  mind  is  roused,  however  actively 
it  may  exert  itself,  however  ready  it  be  to  act  pre- 


382  SERMONS. 

cisely  at  the  juncture  wlieii  its  action  is  required,  if 
it  does  not  act  upon  tlie  proper  objects,  it  might  just 
as  well  not  act  at  all,  it  may  still  be  figuratively  rep- 
resented as  asleep.  This  is  the  spiritual  state  of  many. 
Their  powers  appear  to  be  in  active  exercise,  but  they 
are  spent  on  trifles.  Even  when  they  think  of  serious 
things  in  general,  it  is  not  of  the  great  doctrines  of 
religion — the  substantial  truth  of  God,  but  of  enigmas, 
difficulties,  puzzles  in  theology,  about  which  men 
may  speculate  for  ages,  without  reaching  any  satis- 
factory j-esult,  or  doing  any  good  to  themselves  or 
others.  Such  minds  may  seem  wide  awake,  but  they 
are  walking  and  talking  in  their  sleep  ;  just  as  in  real 
life  we  meet  with  cases  where  the  person  performs 
certain  acts  with  vigour  and  precision,  but  not  such 
as  belong  to  his  present  situation  :  he  is  asleep.  The 
mind  which  is  asleep  in  this  sense,  never  proves  itself 
awake,  imtil  it  turns  away  from  its  beloved  theme  of 
speculation  to  the  matters  which  deserve  and  claim 
its  attention. 

Eut  even  when  it  does  this,  it  may  still  come  short 
of  the  desired  and  necessary  end,  by  thinking  to  no 
practical  purpose.  We  may  think,  think  in  earnest, 
think  with  vigour,  think  coherently,  think  seasonably, 
think  of  the  right  things,  yet  think  of  them  merely  as 
themes  of  speculation,  without  any  reference  to  our 
own  duty,  or  practical  concern  in  them.  This  is  the 
case  of  those  who  hear  the  gospel,  and  read  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  think  much  of  religion,  but  still  keep  it  at 
arm's  length,  or  still  further  off  from  any  personal 
contact  with  themselves,  or  with  any  thing  beyond 
their  understandings  or  their  speculative  faculties. 


'      MARK  13,  37.  383 

Tliis  leads  me  iii  the  next  place  to  observe,  that 
tlie  conscience  as  well  as  the  intellect  mnst  be  awake 
— the  moral  as  well  as  the  pnrely  intellectual  facul- 
ties. There  must  be  perception,  not  only  of  what  is 
true,  but  of  what  is  right.  A  power  of  distinguish- 
ing not  only  between  true  and  false,  but  also  between 
right  and  wrong  ;  and  that,  not  only  in  the  abstract, 
but  in  reference  to  ourselves,  our  own  duty,  and  our 
own  transgressions.  If  the  conscience  is  asleep,  no 
liveliness  of  intellect  can  make  up  the  deficiency. 
We  are  but  talking  in  our  sleep.  We  are  not  spir- 
itually awake.  And  lastly,  in  addition  to  all  this, 
the  heart  must  be  awake.  There  must  be  liveliness 
of  affection  no  less  than  of  intellect.  We  must  not 
only  feel  bound,  but  feel  disposed  to  do  the  will  of 
God.  We  must  see  the  coincidence  of  what  is  rio-lit 
with  what  is  good  and  pleasant.  When  all  these  con- 
ditions are  complied  with — when  the  mind,  the  con- 
science, and  the  heart,  all  act,  and  act  in  harmony — 
when  the  man  thinks  in  earnest,  and  coherently,  and 
seasonably  of  right  objects  and  to  practical  purpose — 
when  he  feels  his  obligations,  and  his  failures  to  dis- 
charge them — when  he  earnestly  desires,  and  sin- 
cerely loves  what  he  admits  to  be  true  and  binding 
— then  indeed  he  maybe  said,  in  tlie  lilglicst  spiritual 
sense,  to  be  awake.  And  being  thus  awake,  he  is  a 
proper  subject  of  the  second  precept  comprehended 
in  the  text — Be  on  your  guard  ! 

The  figure  is  a  military  one.  So  much  may  de- 
pend upon  the  vigilance  even  of  a  single  soldier — so 
many  lives — so  many  personal  and  public  interests — 
so  many  subsequent  and  seemingly  remote  events — 


384  SERMONS. 

that  there  is  scarcely  any  situation  in  real  life  more 
responsible.  Hence  the  severity  with  which  a 
breach  of  trust  or  even  an  involuntary  lapse  of  atten- 
tion has  been  punished  in  all  ages.  To  sleep  upon 
one's  post  might  seem,  at  first  sight,  tO"  be  rather  a 
pitiable  weakness  than  a  crime — at  least  a  crime  de- 
serving the  extreme  penalty  of  death,  which  has  so 
often  been  inflicted.  But  when  the  remote  as  well  as 
the  immediate  consequences  of  neglect  in  such  a  sta 
tion  are  considered,  the  venial  offence  swells  into  a 
crime  of  awful  magnitude,  and  worthy  of  the  highest 
penalty. 

But  what  is  there  analogous  to  this  in  the  spir- 
itual warfare  ?  At  whose  door  are  we  stationed  as 
sentinels  to  watch,  upon  pain  of  death  ?  If  I  should 
answer,  at  the  door  of  every  neighbour,  friend,  or  fellow- 
christian,  some  might  be  disposed  to  ask  as  Cain  did 
— Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?  For  this  cause,  although 
there  is  a  real  and  important  sense  in  which  we  may 
be,  figuratively,  represented  as  sentinels  over  one 
another,  I  shall  confine  myself  to  that  watch  which 
every  man  is  bound  to  keep  over  the  citadel  of  his 
own  heart.  The  order  given  by  the  captain  of  our 
salvation,  is,  "  keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence,  for 
out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life."  If  a  dereliction  of 
this  duty  were  not  liable  to  be  j)unished  by  virtue 
of  a  positive  decree,  it  would  still  be  punished  by  the 
loss  incurred,  the  total  loss  of  that  which  can  never 
be  supplied ;  for  what  is  a  man  profited  if  he  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul,  or  what  shall  a 
man  give  in  exchange  for  his  soul  ? 

"With  these  views  of  the  importance  of  the  charge, 


MARK  13,  37.  o§^ 

let  me  again  remind  you  that,  altliongli  it  is  essential, 
it  is  not  enough  to  be  awake.     This  admits  of  illus- 
tration from  the  case  of  literal,  external  watching. 
See  that  sentry  at  the  gate  of  an  encampment  or  a 
fortress — mark  his  measured  tread,  his  martial  i)ort, 
his    anxious    though    determined    countenance — his 
quiet  and  searching  glance,  as  he  repeats  his  constant 
walk — that  soldier  is  awake,  but  he  is  more — he  is 
upon  his  guard — his  mind  is  full  of  his  important 
trust — he  feels  the  weight  of  his  responsibility.     But 
see — his  frame  becomes  relaxed,  his  form  grows  less 
erect,  his  movements  lose  their  regular  mechanical 
succession — his  look  is  vacant  or  abstracted,  he  no 
longer  looks  afar  oif  and  at  hand  in  search   of  ap- 
proaching danger,  he  has  either  forgotten  it,  or  ceased 
to  reckon  it  so  imminent.     And  yet  the  man  is  wide 
awake ;  not  only  are  his  eyes  still  open,  but  they  see 
surrounding  objects ;  all  his  senses  are  still  active  and 
his  mind,  though  distracted  from   his  present  duty, 
is  as  much  at  work  as  ever ;  for  no  sooner  does  the 
slightest  sound  arouse  him,  than,  as  if  by  mao-ic,  he 
recovers  his  position,  and  the  tension  of  his  muscles, 
he  resumes  his  measured  walk,  his  mingled  air  of 
circumspection  and  defiance,    and  his  look  of  bold 
but  anxious  scrutiny.    Even  before,  he  was  awake ;  but 
now  he  is  awake,  and  at  the  same  time  on  his  guard. 
Precisely  the  same  difference   exists   between  a 
simple  wakefulness  in  spiritual  matters — a  wakeful- 
ness of  imderstanding,  conscience,  and  affection— and 
the  active  exercise  of  spiritual  vigilance  ;  this  is  im- 
possible without  the  other,  but  the   other  does  not 
necessarily  involve  this.     In  both  cases,  ^.  e.,  in  the 

VOL.  I. — 17 


386  SERMONS. 

literal  and  spiritual  case  snpfoscv,  thert  is  a  sensible 
gradation  of  remissness  or  the  opposite.  We  have 
seen  the  sentry  wholly  losing,  for  a  moment,  the  rec- 
ollection of  his  solemn  trust ;  but  this  is  not  the  only 
"svay  in  which  he  may  unconsciously  betray  it.  Look 
at  him  again.  Every  look,  every  motion,  now  betokens 
concentration  of  his  thoughts  and  feelings  on  the 
danger  which  impends,  and  against  which  he  is  set 
to  watch.  Perhaps  he  is  now  motionless,  but  it  is 
only  that  his  eye  may  be  more  steadfastly  fixed  upon 
the  point  from  which  the  enemy's  approach  is  appre- 
hended. In  that  point  his  whole  being  seems  to  be 
absorbed.  And  you  can  see  at  a  glance  that  he  is 
ready,  even  for  the  first  and  faintest  intimation  of  a 
moving  object  on  that  dim  horizon.  But  while  he 
stands  like  a  statue,  with  his  face  turned  towards  that 
dreaded  point,  look  beyond  him  and  behind  him,  at 
those  forms  which  are  becoming  every  moment  more 
and  more  defined  against  the  opposite  quiirter  of  the 
heavens.  He  hears  them  not,  because  their  step  is 
noiseless ;  he  sees  them  not,  because  his  eye  and  all 
liis  faculties  are  employed  in  an  opposite  direction. 
While  he  strains  every  sense  to  catch  the  first  inti- 
mations of  approaching  danger,  it  is  creeping  stealthily 
behind  him,  and  when  at  last  his  ear  distinguishes 
the  tramp  of  armed  men,  it  is  too  late,  for  a  hostile 
hand  is  already  on  his  shoulder,  and  if  his  life  is 
spared,  it  is  only  to  be  overpowered  and  disarmed, 
without  resistance.  And  yet  that  soldier  was  not  only 
awake  but  on  his  guard — his  whole  being  was  absorbed 
in  contemplation  of  the  danger  which  impended  ;  but 
alas,  he  viewed  it  as  impending  only  from  one  quar- 


MARK  13,  37.  387 

ter,  and  lost  sight  of  it  as  really  approaching  from 
another.  AVe  may  even  suppose  that  he  was  right  in 
looking  where  he  did,  and  only  wrong  in  looking 
there  exclusively.  There  was  an  enemy  to  be  ex- 
pected from  that  quarter,  and  if  this  had  been  the 
only  one,  the  sentry's  duty  would  have  been  success- 
fully performed ;  but  he  was  not  aware,  or  had  for- 
gotten that  the  danger  was  a  complex  one — that  while 
the  enemy  delayed  his  coming,  another  might  be  just 
at  hand,  and  thus  the  very  concentration  of  his  watch- 
fulness on  one  point,  defeated  its  own  purpose,  by 
withdrawing  liis  attention  from  all  others. 

By  a  sliglit  shifting  in  the  scene,  I  might  present 
to  you  the  same  man  or  another,  gazing,  not  at  one 
point  only,  but  at  all,  sweeping  the  whole  visible 
horizon  with  his  eye  as  he  maintains  his  martial  vigil. 
See  with  what  restless  activity  his  looks  pass  from  one 
distant  point  to  another,  as  if  resolved  that  nothing 
shall  escape  him,  that  no  imaginable  source  of  danger 
shall  remain  nnwatched.  That  man  might  seem  to 
be  in  every  sense  awake  and  on  his  guard — surprise 
might  seem  to  be  impossible — but  hark !  what  sound 
is  that  which  suddenly  disturbs  him  in  his  solitary 
vigils?  he  looks  hastily  around  him  but  sees  nothing, 
yet  the  sound  is  growing  every  moment  louder  and 
more  distinct — "  a  voice  of  noise  from  the  city" — 
"the  voice  of  them  that  shout  for  mastery" — "the 
voice  of  them  that  cry  for  being  overcome !  "  Doubt 
is  no  longer  possible — it  is — it  is  behind  him — yes, 
the  enemy  for  whom  he  looked  so  vigilantly,  is  within 
the  walls,  and  the  banner  which  he  thouijcht  to  have 


388  SERMONS. 

seen  waving  at  a  distance,  is  floating  in  triumph  just 
above  his  head. 

The  cases  which  I  have  snpposed,  are  not  mere 
appeals  to  your  imagination.  They  are  full  of  instruc- 
tion as  to  practical  realities.  They  vividly  present  to 
us,  in  figurative  forms,  the  actual  condition  of  the 
soul  in  reference  to  spiritual  dangers.  It  is  just  as 
true  of  us,  as  of  the  soldier  in  the  case  supposed,  that 
we  may  fail  of  our  duty  and  expose  ourselves  to 
ruin,  not  only  by  actually  falling  asleep,  but  by  want 
of  proper  caution  when  awake — by  forgetting  the  dan- 
ger or  by  underrating  it — by  admitting  its  reality  and 
magnitude,  but  losing  sight  of  its  proximity  and  im- 
minence— by  looking  for  it  from  a  quarter  whence  it 
is  not  likely  to  proceed,  while  we  turn  our  backs  on 
that  from  which  it  ought  to  be  expected — by  looking 
for  it  with  good  reason  from  one  quarter,  but  forget- 
ting that  it  may  proceed  from  others  also — by  looking 
for  one  enemy  instead  of  many — and  above  all,  by 
looking  at  a  distance  when  the  danger  is  at  hand — 
by  exercising  vigilance  without,  when  the  danger  is 
within — and  vainly  hoping  to  anticipate  its  first  ap- 
proaches, v.'hen  the  fight  is  finished  and  the  bat- 
tle lost. 

If  it  be  asked,  "Who  is  the  enemy  against  which 
spiritual  vigilance  is  called  for,  I  repl}^,  his  name  is 
Legion.  There  is  no  end  to  the  forms  under  which  he 
can  disguise  himself,  nor  to  the  arts  which  he  can 
practise — "  We  are  not  (wholly)  ignorant  of  his  de- 
vices." But  our  spiritual  dangers,  although  endlessly 
diversified  in  their  specific  characters,  may  all  be  re- 
solved into  one,  and  that  is  sin.     Indeed,  all  danger, 


MARK  13,  S7.  389 

wliethcr  physical  or  moral,  may  bo  traced  back  to 
this  source,  for  it  is  wholly  incredible  that  suffering 
could  ever  iiave  existed  without  sin.  But  in  reference 
to  spiritual  dangers,  it  is  still  more  emphatically  true 
that  they  are  all  reducible  by  ultimate  analysis  to 
this  same  form.  There  is  nothing  to  be  spiritually 
dreaded  except  sin  and  its  effects.  Whatever  there- 
fore tends  to  sin,  not  merely  to  the  overt  act,  nor  even 
to  specific  acts  of  will,  but  to  the  love,  the  practice, 
the  dominion  of  iniquity,  in  any  form  or  measure 
whatsoever,  is  a  danger  to  be  dreaded  and  assiduously 
watched  against.  And  this  extends  not  only  to  the 
actual  commission  or  indulgence,  but  to  all  exciting 
and  facilitating  causes,  such  as  are  usually  compre- 
hended in  the  name  temptation.  However  little  you 
may  be  aware  of  it,  I  tell  you  that  temptation  is  your 
danger,  and  the  tempter  your  enemy.  This  danger, 
this  enemy,  as  I  have  said,  appears  in  various  dis- 
guises, and  assails  us  from  a  thousand  different  rpiar- 
ters.  Our  vigilance  must,  therefore,  be  a  constant  and 
a  universal  vigilance,  or  we  can  have  no  confidence  of 
safety. 

To  concentrate  and  define  our  vague  conceptions 
of  a  multiform  peril,  we  may  group  the  innumerable 
dangers  which  surround  us,  under  several  descriptive 
heads ;  and  these,  in  accordance  with  the  figure  hith- 
erto adopted,  and  as  I  think  implicitly  suggested  by 
the  text,  may  be  enumerated  as  so  many  distinct 
quarters  from  which  danger  threatens  us,  and  towards 
M'hich  our  vigilance  must  therefore  be  directed. 

The  first  that  I  shall  mention  is  the  devil,  both  iis 
an  indiN'idual  spirit  and  as  representing  the  collective 


390  SERMONS. 

hosts  of  hell,  the  aggregate  of  ^lie  powers  of  dark- 
ness. This,  of  all  spiritual  clangers,  is  the  one  which 
most  men  look  upon  as  most  remote  and  least  sub- 
stantial. However  readily  they  may  assent  to  what 
is  theoretically  taught  upon  the  subject,  they  are 
practically  less  afraid  of  this  than  of  any  other  ad- 
verse power.  Nay,  some  professed  believers  in  the 
Bible  are  by  no  means  loth  to  join  in  the  derisive 
language  of  the  irreligious  as  to  this  mysterious  sub- 
ject. Be  it  so.  Let  those  who  can,  derive  amusement 
from  the  doctrine  of  a  fallen  spirit,  far  superior  to 
ourselves  in  original  intelligence,  and  now  possessed 
of  faculties  strengthened  and  sharpened  by  the  malig- 
nant activity  of  ages,  allowed  access  to  the  minds  of 
men,  and  suffered  to  exert  a  moral  influence  upon 
them,  though  deprived  of  all  coercive  power.  But 
let  such,  even  while  they  laugh,  remember  that  the 
time  may  not  be  far  off  when  they  shall  perceive  their 
situation  to  be  that  of  the  soldier  or  the  general  Avho 
denies  and  even  lauglis  at  the  existence  of  a  certain 
enemy,  until  he  is  suddenly  convinced,  by  being 
crushed  beneath  the  very  force  which  he  derided  as 
imaginary.  If  the  sentinel  be  justly  doomed  to  death 
who  jeopards  his  own  life  and  that  of  others  by  ne- 
glect, or  even  by  too  narrow  an  attention  to  his  trust, 
what  shall  be  said  of  him  -who  does  the  same  by 
making  light  of  the  existence  of  the  danger.  With 
this  premonition  of  the  change  which  may  take  place 
hereafter  in  your  views  upon  this  subject,  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  say  to  the  most  incredulous  among  you, 
in  the  words  of  the  apostle  Peter,  "  be  sober,  be 
vigilant,  because  your  adversary,  the  devil,  like  a 


n 


MARK  13,  37.  301 

roaring  lion,  goetli  about,  seeking  wliom  lie  may  de- 
vour." 

Another  qnartcr  from  whicli  danger  is  always  to 

be  appreliended,  is  the  World,  a  term  by  which  the 
Scriptures  designate  the  complex  influence  exerted  by 
mankind  upon  each  other,  not  as  individuals  merely, 
but  as  elements  of  human  society,  whether  this  influ- 
ence be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  opinions,  the  pas- 
sions, or  the  appetites  ;  whether  the  bait  presented 
be  that  of  sensual  enjoyment,  social  popularity,  offi- 
cial rank,  civil  jjower  or  military  glory,  intellectual 
fame,  or  mere  inglorious  ease  and  exemption  from  an- 
noyance. The  reality  of  this  danger,  few  will  dare  to 
question.  Some  may  be  ready  to  exclaim,  we  know 
what  this  is,  we  believe  in  its  existence,  we  have  felt 
its  power.  Whether  there  be  an  infernal  devil  or 
not,  we  know  that  there  are  devilish  powers  at  work 
in  human  society.  The  young  and  inexjierienced, 
who  have  not  been  sucked  into  this  fearful  whirlpool, 
may  swim  carelessly  around  it,  but  you  whose  hearts 
have  been  already  blighted,  and  your  consciences 
seared  perhaps  as  with  a  hot  iron ;  you  know,  although 
you  may  not  choose  to  tell,  what  depths  of  meaning 
are  contained  in  that  one  syllable — the  world,  the 
world.  You  know  too,  that  it  is  not,  as  the  young 
sometimes  imagine,  the  enmity,  the  scorn,  the  hatred, 
the  oppressions,  wrongs,  or  persecutions,  of  the  wicked 
world,  that  constitute  the  danger,  but  its  smiles,  its 
blandishments,  its  friendship  ;  "  know  ye  not,"  says 
the  apostle  James,  "  that  the  friendship  of  the  world 
is  enmity  with  God ;  whosoever  therefore  will  be  a 
friend  of  the  world  is  the  enemy  of  God." 


392  SERMONS. 

But  neitliei"  world  nor  devil  woidd  be  objects  of 
alai'in  and  appreliensioii,  if  tliey  always  remained 
witliout  ns  and  external  to  ns ;  what  makes  tliem 
dangcrons  is  tliat  tliey  get  within  ns,  they  obtain  a 
lodgment  in  our  hearts,  they  are  leagued  with  our 
own  corruptions  ;  hence  the  third  and  most  alarming 
source  of  spiritual  danger  is  ourselves,  the  last  to  be 
suspected  and  the  hardest  to  be  watched,  and  yet  the 
most  in  need  of  our  suspicion  and  our  vigilance,  be- 
cause one  enemy  within  the  camp  or  fortress  is  worse 
than  many  foes  without;  because  one  traitor  is  more 
to  be  dreaded  than  a  host  of  open  enemies.  Yet  such 
is  our  condition,  -exposed  all  at  once  to  these  three 
dangers,  any  one  of  which  would  seem  sufficient  to 
destroy  us  ;  the  World,  the  Flesh,  and  the  Devil ; 
seduced  to  evil  by  human  example,  urged  to  it  by 
demoniacal  suggestion,  and  inclined  to  it  already  by 
the  very  dispositions  of  our  fallen  nature ;  assailed 
without  by  the  united  hosts  of  earth  and  hell,  be- 
trayed within  by  our  own  corruptions,  bound  hand 
and  foot,  and  left  to  float  upon  the  rapid  current 
which  every  hour  brings  us  nearer  to  the  judgment 
scat  of  Christ. 

"While  such  is  our  condition,  how  can  we  look  for- 
ward with  joy  to  his  appearing?  This  is  a  painful 
thouo-ht,  but  one  which  cannot  be  avoided,  that  to 
these  three  dangers  which  have  been  already  men- 
tioned, we  must  add  as  a  fourth  the  coming  of  our 
Lord.  Is  he  then  our  enemy,  from  whose  approach 
we  ought  to  shrink  back  in  terror  ?  It  may  be  so. 
Let  us  see  to  it  that  it  is  not  so  ;  let  us  so  resist  our 
spiritual  foes,  and  watch  against  them,  as  to  meet  him 


MARK  13,  S7.  393 

when  lie  comes  with  joy  and  not  with  grief.  Let  us 
so  live  as  to  show  that  we  are  not  of  those  who  shall 
hereafter  call  upon  the  rocks  and  raountains  to  con 
ceal  us  from  his  view,  but  of  those  who  sincerely  love 
his  aj)pearing.  We  have  surely  no  need  of  additional 
inducements  to  obey  the  exhortation  of  the  text. 

The  only  question  that  remains  is,  how  shall  we 
obey  it  ?  We  have  seen  the  necessity  and  duty  of 
spiritual  watchfulness  and  wherein  it  essentially  con 
sists,  but  we  are  like  the  sick  man  who  is  told  of  his 
disease  and  of  the  remedy,  but  still  looks  round  for 
some  one  jto  apply  it.  It  is  natural  to  ask :  is  there 
not  some  safeguard,  some  appointed  tried  means  of 
spiritual  safety,  something  that  will  at  once  secure  our 
vigilance  and  make  it  efficacious  ?  Tes,  there  is  such  a 
talisman,  and  its  name  is  prayer ;  not  the  mere  act  of 
supplication  or  devotion,  whether  audible  or  mental, 
but  that  prayerful  attitude  or  frame  of  mind,  which 
is  ever  ready  to  commune  with  God,  and  of  which 
Paul  could  say,  without  extravagance,  and  meaning 
to  the  letter  what  he  did  say  :  "  Pray  without  ceas- 
ing;" that  settled  bent  of  the  affections  which  makes 
actual  devotion  not  a  rare  experience,  but  the  normal 
condition  of  the  soul,  to  which  it  naturally  flies  back 
whenever  it  escapes  from  any  temporaiy  pressure. 
This  prayerful  habit  is  repeatedly  connected  in  the 
word  of  God  with  watch  ;  "  Watch  and  pray  lest  ye 
enter  into  temptation."  "  Continue  in  prayer,  and 
watch  in  the  same  with  thanksgiving."  And  Paul 
in  that  sublime  description  of  the  j)anoply  of  God 
(Eph.  6,)  seems  to  add  this  as  essential  to  the  efficacy 
of  the  rest,  for  after  urging  them  to  take  the  girdle 

VOL.  I. — 17* 


394  SERMONS 

of  truth,  the  breastplate  of  righteousness,  the  shield  ot 
faith,  the  helmet  of  salvation,  and  the  sword  of  the 
Spirit  which  is  the  word  of  God,  he  crowns  all  with 
this  closing  exhortation,  "praying  always  -vnth  all 
prayer  and  supplication  in  tlie  Spirit,  and  watching 
thereunto  with  all  perseverance."  Thus  it  seems  we 
must  watch  that  we  may  pray,  and  pray  that  we  may 
watch.  The  influence  which  prayer  exerts  is  easily 
explained.  It  operates  by  keeping  the  mind  ever 
awake  and  in  a  state  of  healthful  activity,  by  keeping 
it  in  contact  with  the  best  and  highest  objects,  and 
bringing  the  affections  and  the  powers  to  bear  pri- 
marily upon  them. 

If  then  we  would  watch  to  any  good  effect  against 
our  spiritual  dangers,  let  us  pray  without  ceasing,  let 
us  breathe  the  atmosphere  of  genuine  devotion.  And 
in  this  way  we  shall  do  far  more  than  escape  injury. 
The  benefit  of  prayerful  vigilance  is  not  merely  neg- 
ative but  positive,  a  blessing  is  suspended  on  it.  In 
the  present  state,  the  best  of  us  are  like  men  that 
wait  for  their  lord,  that  when  he  cometh  and  knock- 
eth  we  may  open  unto  him.  Already  the  flashing  of 
hii5  torches  is  beginning  to  illuminate  the  darkness, 
already  the  voice  of  his  forerunners  comes  through  the 
silent  night  saying.  Be  ye  also  ready ;  and  amidst 
those  cries,  his  own  voice  may  be  heard  still  afar  off, 
saying,  "  What  I  say  unto  you,  I  say  unto  all. 
Watch."  "Watch  and  pray  that  ye  enter  not  into 
temptation."  "  Blessed  are  those  servants  whom  the 
Lord,  when  he  cometh,  shall  find  watching ;  whether 
he  come  in  the  second  watch,  or  come  in  the  third 
watch,  and  find  them  so,  blessed  are  those  servants." 


XXI. 


llATTnKAY  21,  G. — The  cud  is  not  yet. 


TiiE  prophetical  discourse,  of  wliicli  this  sentence 
forms  a  part,  has  been  the  subject  of  confficting  ex- 
planation, ever  since  it  was  originally  uttered.  The 
grand  difficulty  lies  in  the  appropriateness  of  its  terms 
to  two  distinct  and  distant  events,  the  end  of  the 
world  and  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 

But  whether  we  assume,  with  some  interpreters, 
that  the  one  catastrophe  was  meant  to  typify  the 
other ;  or  with  another  class,  that  the  discourse  may 
be  mechanically  divided,  by  assuming  a  transition  at 
a  certain  point  from  one  of  these  great  subjects  to  the 
other ;  or  with  a  third,  that  it  describes  a  sequence  of 
events  to  be  repeated  more  than  once,  a  prediction  to 
be  verified,  not  once  for  all,  nor  yet  by  a  continuous 
progressive  series  of  events,  but  in  stages  and  at  in- 
tervals, like  repeated  flashes  of  lightning,  or  the  pe- 
riodical germination  of  the  fig-tree,  or  the  re-assembling 
of  the  birds  of  prey,  whenever  and  wherever  a  new 
carcass  tempts  them ;  upon  any  of  tlicse  various  sup- 
positions, it  is  still  true  that  the  primary  fulfilment 
of  the  prophecy  was  in  the  dow]ifall  of  the  Jewish 


896  SERMONS. 

state,  with  the  previous  or  accompanying  change  of 
dispensations ;  and  yet  that  it  was  so  framed,  as  to 
leave  it  doubtful,  until  the  event,  whether  a  still  more 
terrible  catastrophe  was  nc  t  intended.  However  clear 
the  contrary  may  now  seem  to  us,  there  was  nothing 
absurd  in  the  opinion  which  so  many  entertained  that 
the  end  of  the  world  and  of  the  old  economy  might 
be  coincident.  This  ambiguity  is  not  accidental  but 
designed,  as  in  many  other  prophecies  of  Scripture. 

Another  striking  feature  in  the  form  of  this  dis- 
course, is  the  precision  with  which  several  stages  or 
degrees  of  the  fulfilment  are  distinguished  from  each 
other,  each  affording  the  occasion  and  the  premonition 
of  the  next  until  the  close  of  the  whole  series.  Of 
these  successive  periods  or  scenes  of  the  great  drama, 
each  might,  considered  in  itself,  have  seemed  to  be 
the  last.  And  no  doubt  each  as  it  occurred  was  so 
regarded  even  by  some  who  had  been  forewarned  by 
Christ  himself.  To  correct  this  error  and  prepare  tlie 
minds  of  true  believers  for  the  whole  that  was  to 
come  upon  them,  he  says,  at  the  close  of  the  first 
scene,  "  see  that  ye  be  not  troubled,  for  all  these 
things  must  come  to  pass,  but  the  end  is  not  yet;" 
or,  as  Luke  expresses  it,  "  the  end  is  not  by  and  by," 
i.  e.  immediately.  And  again  at  the  close  of  the  next 
stage  of  this  great  revolution,  "  all  these  are  the  be- 
ginning of  sorrows." 

The  same  intimation,  although  not  expressed,  may 
be  supplied  throughout  the  prophecy.  At  every 
solemn  pause,  until  the  last,  a  kind  of  echo  seems  to 
say  again,  "  the  end  is  not  yet."  When  the  predic- 
tion was  fulfilled,  we  may  easily  imagine  the  impres- 


MATTHEW  24,  i  397 

Bion  wliicli  this  well-remembered  formula  v\'ould  make 
upon  tlie  minds  of  the  disciples.  As  each  new  sign 
aj^peared,  they  Avere  no  doubt  ready  to  exclaim,  the 
end  comcth,  and  as  each  gave  way  to  another,  the  end 
is  not  yet.  And  Avhat  was  thus  true  of  the  several 
stages  of  this  great  catastrophe  was  also  true  of  the 
whole.  The  impression  made  on  many  by  the  very 
structure  of  the  prophecy,  that  the  Jewish  state  and 
the  world  would  come  to  an  end  together,  was  no 
sooner  rectified  by  the  event,  than  multitudes  who 
had  been  breathlessly  awaiting  the  result,  as  they 
again  respired  freely,  cried  out  to  themselves  or 
others,  the  end  is  not  yet.  The  need  of  this  caution 
has  not  ceased.  Men  have  ever  since  been  and  are 
still  too  much  disposed  to  precipitate  the  fulfilment 
of  God's  purposes,  and  to  confound  "  the  beginning 
of  sorrow"  with  "the  end."  They  are  slow  to  learn 
the  lesson  that  "  the  believer  will  not  make  haste," 
that  an  important  element  of  faith  in  the  divine  en- 
gagements is  a  disposition  to  leave  time  and  every 
other  circumstance  to  God  himself,  a  disposition  per- 
fectly consistent  with  intense  desire  and  urgent  im- 
portunity. There  is  something  curious  in  the  diifer- 
ence  of  men's  feelings  and  opinions  with  respect  to 
the  life  of  individuals,  and  to  that  of  the  race  or  the 
continued  existence  of  this  present  world.  The  great 
majority  of  men  live  as  if  they  were  to  live  for  ever. 
The  efi'ect  of  this  upon  their  character  and  lives  af- 
fords a  constant,  theme  to  moralists  and  preachers  of 
the  gospel.  In  all  this  there  is  only  a  misapplication 
or  undue  restriction  of  a  principle  inherent  in  our 
very  constitution.     Man  is  immortal,  and  was  made 


398  SERMONS. 

for  immortality.  He  cannot,  if  lie  would,  look  only 
at  tlic  present  and  the  past.  He  must  feel  and  act 
for  the  future  also.  And  that  not  only  for  a  definite 
or  proximate  futurity,  but  also  for  one  more  remote 
and  undefined,  the  boundless  field  of  what  is  yet  to 
be.  The  practical  error  lies  in  confounding  endless 
existence  with  an  endless  prolongation  of  the  present 
life.  Tlie  negation  of  all  end  is  confounded  with  ex- 
emption from  all  change.  The  more  profoundly  men 
reflect,  the  more  they  are  brought  off  from  this  illu- 
sion. But  so  long  as  they  are  heedless  and  controlled 
by  natural  feeling,  they  expect  to  live  forever.  Ko 
extent  of  observation,  no  degree  of  familiarity  with 
death  and  its  accompanying  changes  is  sufiicient  to 
correct  this  practical  error,  for  of  course  it  can  have 
no  theoretical  existence. 

But  the  most  surprising  fact  of  all  is  that  these 
views  may  co-exist  with  a  strong  disposition  to  expect 
a  speedy  termination  of  the  whole  system  under  which 
we  live.  The  certainty  of  this  fact  is  clear  from  the 
effect  of  those  fanatical  predictions  which  at  different 
times  have  agitated  Christendom.  Li  all  such  cases 
the  panic  has  had  reference  to  the  end  of  the  world. 
Let  this  be  quelled,  and  all  fear  is  extinguished.  It 
does  not  occur  to  the  alarmist  that  however  probable 
the  near  approach  of  tlie  event  may  be  made  by  cal- 
culation or  by  reasoning,  it  never  can  be  rendered 
half  so  certain  as  his  own  death  in  the  course  of 
nature  at  no  distant  period.  Xay,  the  probability  of 
this  inevitable  change  occurring  even  speedily  must 
alM^ays  transcend  that  of  a  speedy  occurrence  of  the 
final  consummation.     Yet  the   oldest  and  the  least 


MATTHEW  24,  6.  399 

prepared  to  die  remain  unmoved  by  tliis  appalling 
certainty,  althoiigh  tliey  would  be  terrified  by  any 
intimation  that  tbe  world  was  to  continne  but  a 
twelvemonth  longer.  It  matters  not  that  they  may 
die  to-morrow  or  to-day,  if  they  can  only  be  assnred 
that  the  end  of  the  world  is  not  immediately  at  hand. 
In  some  cases  it  is  easy  to  refer  these  very  diifer-  ^ 
ent  effects  to  one  and  the  same  cause.  The  self-love 
which  forbids  some  men  to  look  npon  themselves  as 
mortal,  makes  them  equally  unwilling,  when  this 
truth  is  forced  upon  them,  to  allow  a  longer  term  to 
others.  If  they  must  die,  let  humanity  die  with  them. 
Something  of  this  selfish  feeling  no  doubt  enters  into 
the  strong  disposition  of  some  good  men  in  all  ages, 
to  regard  their  own  times  as  the  last,  and  to  fix  the 
winding  up  of  the  great  drama  as  near  as  may"  be  to 
their  own  disappearance  from  the  stage.  As  Herod 
the  Great  is  said  to  have  ordered  a  large  number  of 
distinguished  persons  to  be  massacred  as  soon  as  he 
was  dead,  in  order  that  his  death  might  not  be  wholly 
unaccompanied  by  mourning,  so  the  class  in  question 
seem  to  look  upon  the  end  of  the  world  as  a  necessary 
part  of  their  own  obsequies.  The  impression  of  ap- 
proaching change  and  dissolution,  which  is  perfectly 
appropriate  to  their  own  case,  is  transferred  by  a  nat- 
ural association  to  the  scene  which  they  are  leaving, 
as  if  it  were  out  of  the  question  that  the  world  can 
get  along  without  them. 

This  pardonable  vanity,  if  such  it  may  be  called, 
seeks,  of  course,  to  justify  itself  by  the  authority  of 
scripture.  Hence  the  prophecies  are  tortured  into 
confirmation  c»f  the  fact  assumed,  and  every  art  of 


4:00  SERMONS. 

calculation  and  construction  is  employed  to  bring  tlie 
end  of  the  worll  as  near  as  may  be  into  coincidence 
with  that  of  the  interpreter.  'Nor  have  these  been 
barren  and  inoperative  speculations.  Their  effect  has 
been  immense  and  sometimes  long  continued,  both  on 
individuals  and  whole  communities.  The  most  re- 
markable exemplification  of  the  general  statement,  is 
afforded  by  the  memorable  panic  which  diffused  itself 
through  Christendom  at  the  approach  of  the  year 
1,000.  The  belief  had  been  gradually  gaining  ground 
that  the  close  of  this  millennium,  or  first  period  of  a 
thousand  years,  was  to  be  the  final  close  of  human 
history.  As  the  fatal  term  drew  near,  the  supersti- 
tious dread  associated  with  it  grew  continually  more 
intense  and  powerful  in  its  effects.  These,  as  dis- 
closed by  the  historical  research  of  modern  times, 
have  more  the  aspect  of  romance  than  of  true  history. 
They  might  indeed  be  tliouglit  incredible,  but  for  the 
like  eftects  of  the  same  causes  in  our  own  times,  on  a 
smaller  scale  and  in  less  imposing  circumstances.  One 
of  the  most  striking  facts  recorded,  is,  that  a  large 
portion  of  those  massive,  medieval  structures  which 
now  constitute  the  monuments  of  those  times,  were,  at 
least,  i3rojected  under  the  first  impulse  of  recovered 
hope,  occasioned  by  the  transit  of  the  fatal  era.  They 
who,  a  little  while  before,  were  throwing  away  treas- 
ures and  abandoning  estates  as  henceforth  worthless, 
by  a  natural  reaction,  now  rushed  into  the  opposite 
extreme,  and  began  to  build  as  for  eternity. 

However  improbable  the  actual  recurrence  of  such 
scenes  may  now  appear,  the  j^rinciple  frcm  which 
they  spring  has  been  too  often  manifested,  to  be  looked 


MATTHEW  24,  6.  401 

upon  as  temporary  or  accidental.  It  continues  to  ex- 
ist and  to  exert  its  power,  not  always  with  the  same 
effect  or  to  the  same  extent,  but  so  far  constantly  and 
uniformly,  as  to  make  it  an  interesting  subject  of  in- 
quiry what  we  ought  to  think,  and  how  we  ought  to 
feel  and  act  in  reference  to  it,  as  connected  with  our 
own  times  and  circumstances.  "What  I  believe  to  be 
the  true  solution  of  this  question  may  be  reduced  to 
these  two  propositions : 

1.  So  far  as  we  have  any  means  of  judging,  the 
end  is  not  yet. 

2.  So  far  as  it  remains  a  matter  of  doubt,  it  is 
better  to  assume  that  the  end  is  not  yd.,  than  to  as- 
sume the  contrary. 

1.  So  far  as  we  ha\'c  any  means  of  judgixig,  the 
end  is  not  yet.  This  may  be  argued  negatively  and 
positively.  The  negative  argument  is  this,  that  there 
are  no  conclusive  indications  of  a  speedy  end,  afforded 
either  by  the  word  of  God  or  the  condition  of  the 
world.  Such  indications  are  indeed  alleged,  and  that 
with  confidence,  but  they  have  no  conclusive  force, 
because,  in  the  first  place,  they  rest  upon  gratuitous 
assumptions.  It  is  assumed,  for  instance,  that  a  cer- 
tain form  or  pitch  of  moral  depravation  is  incompati- 
ble with  the  continued  existence  of  society.  That 
there  is  or  may  be  a  degree  of  Avickedness  irrecon- 
cilable with  any  social  organization,  is  too  clear  to 
be  disputed.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  the  present 
condition  of  the  world  is  such.  Such  a  conclusion  is 
not  warranted  by  the  mere  degree  of  actual  corrup- 
tion, however  great,  because  we  do  not  know  how 
much  is  necessary  t^  the  end  in  question,  and  any  at- 


402  SERMOXS. 

tempt  to  determine  it  must  rest  on  a  gratuitous  as- 
sumption. 

The  same  thing  is  true  as  to  the  real  or  supposed 
predictions  of  the  final  consummation  in  the  word  of 
God.  That  these  were  meant,  not  merely  to  assert 
the  general  fact,  and  in  some  cases  to  describe  the 
attendant  circumstances,  but  to  afford  specific  indica- 
tions of  the  very  time  of  its  occurrence,  so  that  it  may 
be  distinctly  known  beforehand ;  all  this  is  assumed 
in  the  usual  reasoning  on  the  subject,  but  assumed 
without  proof.  It  is  not  more  easy  to  affirm  than  to 
deny  it.  Whatever  plausibility  there  may  be  in  the 
sense  thus  put  upon  the  passage  in  question,  there  can 
be  no  certainty.  It  is  not  necessary  to  maintain  that 
this  cannot  be  the  meaning.  It  is  enough  to  know 
that  it  may  not  be.  The  position  taken  is  not  that 
the  proofs  alleged  are  manifestly  false,  but  that  they 
are  inconclusive ;  they  prove  nothing,  because  they 
rest  upon  gratuitous  assumptions.  This,  by  itself, 
would  be  enough  to  justify  the  negative  position,  that 
we  have  no  sufficient  reason  to  believe  that  the  end 
is  at  hand.  • 

But  the  same  thing  is  still  clearer  from  experience. 
These  signs  have  all  been  misapplied  before.  There 
is  perhaps  not  a  single  indication  now  made  use  of 
for  this  purpose,  that  has  not  been  so  employed  in 
former  ages.  Every  striking  coincidence,  every  verbal 
allusion,  has  b^en  weighed  already  in  this  balance 
and  found  wanting.  Nay,  arithmetic  itself,  of  which 
it  has  been  said,  the  figures  cannot  lie,  has  here  misled 
its  thousands.  The  most  positive  numerical  specifi- 
cations may  be  varied  indefinitely  by  the  variation  of 


MATTHEW  24,  6.  403 

the  term  from  which  they  are  to  be  computed.  The 
millennium  of  the  Book  of  Eevelation  has  by  turns 
been  proved  to  be  present,  joast,  and  future.  All  this 
argues  no  defect  or  error  in  the  Scriptures,  but  onl}- 
something  wrong  in  the  interpretation.  When  any 
thing  can  thus  be  made  to  mean  any  thing,  we  have 
reason  to  believe  that  it  was  not  intended  to  reveal  so 
much  as  we  imagine.  In  other  words,  the  passages 
of  scripture  thus  appealed  to,  having  been  applied  be- 
fore in  the  same  way  and  with  equal  plausibility,  and 
the  ap])lication  falsified  by  the  event,  we  are  naturally 
brought  to  the  conclusion,  that  they  never  were  in- 
tended to  disclose  so  much  as  some  are  able  to  per- 
ceive in  them. 

"We  may  reason  in  the  same  way,  from  experience, 
with  respect  to  the  condition  of  society  and  the  degree 
of  actual  corruption.  The  extraordinary  abounding  of 
iniquity  at  any  one  time,  in  itself  considered,  might 
well  lead  us  to  believe  that  such  depravation  must  be 
preparatory  to  the  final  dissolution  of  society.  But  when 
we  find  analogous  appearances  insisted  on,  from  age  to 
age,  with  equal  confidence,  in  proof  of  the  same  thing, 
and  the  proof  as  constantly  annulled  by  the  event, 
we  may  not  unreasonably  hesitate  to  rest  upon  such 
evidence  in  this  case,  and  conclude  that  tests,  which 
have  always  led  to  false  results  before,  must  be  at 
least  defective,  and  their  testimony  inconclusive. 
Whether  we  look,  then,  at  the  word  of  God  or  at  the 
world  around  us,  or  compare  the  condition  of  the  one 
with  the  predictions  of  the  other,  we  have  no  satisfac- 
tory or  adequate  ground  for  the  conclusion  that  "  the 
end  of  all  things  is  at  hand  "  in  this  sense. 


404  SERMONS. 

Let  us  now  look  lor  a  moment  at  tlie  positive  ar- 
gument in  favour  of  the  same  position,  wb'.cli  ttiAy  be 
conveniently  reduced  to  this  form,  that  the  fulfibnent 
of  the  Scriptures  is  still  incomplete,  and  will  require  a 
long  time  for  its  completion. 

In  support  of  this,  we  may  appeal  in  general  to 
the  grand  and  comprehensive  scale  on  which  the 
divine  purposes  are  projected  in  the  Scrijjtures.  The 
natural  impression  made,  perhaps,  on  all  unbiassed 
readers,  is,  that  in  the  Bible  there  are  vast  beginnings, 
which  require  proportionate  conclusions  even  in  the 
present  life.  There  are  germs  which  were  never 
meant  to  be  developed  in  the  stunted  shrub,  but  in 
the  spreading  oak.  There  are  springs  in  tracing  which 
we  cannot  stop  short  at  the  brook  or  even  at  the 
river,  but  are  hurried  on,  as  if  against  our  will,  to  the 
lake,  the  estuary,  and  the  ocean.  Every  such  reader 
of  the  Bible  feels  that  it  conducts  him  to  the  threshold 
of  a  mighty  pile,  and  opens  many  doors,  through 
which  he  gets  a  distant  glimpse  of  long-drawn  aisles, 
vast  halls,  and  endless  passages;  and  how  can  he  be- 
lieve that  this  glimpse  is  the  last  that  he  shall  sec, 
and  that  the  edifice  itself  is  to  be  razed,  before  he  steps 
across  the  threshold. 

This  impression  made  by  the  very  structure  of  the 
Scriptures  is  confirmed  by  their  j)eculiar  j)hraseology, 
the  constant  use  of  language  pointing  not  to  sudden 
instantaneous  revolutions,  but  to  long-continued  dila- 
tory processes  of  change,  decay,  and  restoration,  dis- 
solution, and  relapse,  which  have  as  yet  but  had  their 
beginning,  and  the  full  course  of  whicb  can  only  be 
completed  in  a  cycle  of  ages.     And  besides  these  gen- 


MATTHEW  24,  6.  405 

eral  considerations,  fonnded  on  tlie  structt  re  of  tlie 
dialect  of  Scripture,  we  can  specify  particular  changes 
whicli  have  scarcely  yet  become  perceptible,  but  of 
which  the  Bible  leads  us  to  anticipate  the  end  and  the 
completion  before  "  the  end  cometh," 

One  of  these  is  the  universal  spread  of  the  gospel. 
Without  insisting  on  particular  predictions  of  this 
great  event,  we  may  appeal  to  the  general  impression 
made  upon  all  readers  of  the  Bible,  that  it  must  and 
will  take  place  before  the  end  of  the  existing  dispen- 
sation. Closely  allied  to  this,  as  one  of  its  conspicuous 
effects,  is  the  regeneration  of  the  race,  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  society,  the  realization  of  those  glowing  pic- 
tures of  the  earth  and  its  inhabitants,  which  can 
neither  be  explained  as  day-dreams  of  an  imaginary 
golden  age,  nor  as  poetical  anticipations  of  the  joys 
of  heaven.  ISTor  do  the  Scriptures  lead  us  to  expect 
a  mere  restoration,  but  a  continued  exhibition  of  the 
race,  and  of  society  in  its  normal  state,  contrasted 
with  its  previous  corruptions  and  distortions. 

To  these  and  other  mighty  changes  we  must  look, 
not  only  as  important  means  of  human  elevation,  but 
as  necessary  to  the  vindication  of  the  truth  of  proph- 
ecy. The  longer  its  fullilment  is  delayed,  provided 
it  is  clearly  verified  at  last,  the  stronger  is  the  proof 
of  divine  foresight.  This  is  enhanced  still  further  if 
the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  is  gradual,  or  marked 
by  a  series  of  gradations.  The  longer  the  intervals 
between  these  the  more  striking  the  fulfilment,  if  the 
several  gradations  can  be  clearly  ascertained  and  their 
mutual  connection  rendered  palpable.  Now  there 
certainly  are  such  predictions  even  now  in  the  process 


406  SERMONS. 

of  fullilnieiit,  and  the  very  fact  of  their  existence  is  a 
strong  proof  that  tTie  end  is  not  yet. 

Before  this  comes,  there  is  still  another  object 
which  must  be  accomplished.  This  is  the  vindication 
of  the  Scriptures  generally  from  the  doubts  engen 
dered  by  aj^parent  inconsistencies  not  only  with  it 
self  but  with  history,  with  science,  with  the  principles 
of  morals.  These  clouds  are  not  to  rest  forever  on  the 
word  of  God,  nor  are  they  merely  to  be  scattered  by 
the  brightness  of  the  final  conflagration  or  the  clear 
sunlight  of  eternal  day.  We  have  cheering  reason  to 
believe  that  the  reconciliations  which  have  been  ef- 
fected in  our  own  day  between  different  forms  of 
truth,  are  but  the  foretaste  and  the  pledge  of  what  is 
to  be  done  hereafter  and  before  the  end  cometh. 

It  may  indeed  be  urged  in  opposition  to  this  ar- 
gument, that  all  these  changes  may  be  suddenly  and 
speedily  effected,  so  that  their  necessity  proves  noth- 
ing as  to  the  nearness  or  remoteness  of  the  final  con- 
summation. That  such  an  issue  is  within  the  reach 
of  the  divine  omnipotence,  cannot  be  doubted.  But 
it  does  not  follow  that  because  God  can,  he  will  pro- 
duce a  certain  effect,  or  that  his  power  is  the  measure 
of  his  wisdom  or  his  actual  purpose.  His  wisdom, 
on  the  contrary,  controls  the  exercise  of  his  jDower. 
Such  a  sudden  termination  of  the  system,  therefore, 
although  possible,  is  far  from  being  probable,  because 
some  of  the  proofs,  by  which  the  truth  of  the  divine 
word  is  to  be  established,  from  their  very  nature  seem 
to  require  time  for  their  perfect  exhibition. 

If,  for  example,  it  is  one  of  the  great  pui-poses  dis- 
closed in  Scripture  to  exhibit  human  society  in  ita 


MATTHEW  24,  6.  407 

normal  state,  and  tlie  effects  of  holiness  compared 
with  those  of  sin,  it  is  not  easy  to  imagine  how  this 
could  he  hronght  ahout  hy  any  sudden,  partial,  tran- 
sient revolution,  which,  although  it  might  illustrate 
the  omnipotence  of  God,  could  scarcely  serve  to  show 
the  operation  of  moral  causes.  And  even  where  a 
longer  period  does  not  seem  to  be  required  by  the 
very  nature  of  the  proof  itself,  it  may  be  necessary  to 
its  full  eifect,  as  in  the  case  of  prophecy,  which,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  becomes  impressive  and  con- 
clusive, as  an  evidence  of  prescience,  in  proportion  to 
the  number  and  remoteness  of  the  points  at  which  its 
fulfilment  may  be  verified.  A  prophecy  fulfilled  the 
day  after  its  date  may  leave  no  doubt  as  to  its  origin, 
but  what  a  cumulative  increase  in  the  clearness  of  the 
evidence  and  in  the  scope  of  its  eftect  would  be  pro- 
duced by  successively  enlarging  the  interval  between 
the  date  and  the  fulfilment  to  a  week,  a  month,  a 
year,  a  generation,  a  century,  a  millennium! 

Now  if  some  signal  prophecies  have  as  yet  been 
but  partially  fulfilled,  and  the  fulfilment  thus  far  has 
been  marked  by  numerous  gradations  and  divided  by 
long  intervals,  tliere  is  at  least  a  probability  that  what 
remains  will  exhibit  the  same  aspect,  and  will  there- 
fore require  time  for  its  development.  The  sum  of 
these  considerations,  negative  and  positive,  appears 
to  be,  that  there  is  no  conclusive  indication  of  a 
speedy  end ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  there  are  strong 
reasons  for  believing  that  it  is  remote  ;  but  that  even 
these  are  insuflicient  to  decide  the  question  absolute- 
ly ;  so  that,  after  all,  it  is  a  doubtful  point.  Regard- 
ing it  as  such,  we  may  naturally  hesitate  between  two 


408  SERMONS. 

courses.  Shall  we,  on  the  one  hand,  follow  the  pre- 
ponderating evidence  in  favour  of  a  distant  consum- 
mation ?  or  shall  we,  on  the  other,  take  what  seems  to 
be  the  safer  course  of  looking  for  that  soon  which  onay 
be  still  far  distant,  but  which  may  be  already  at  the 
very  door  ?  In  other  words,  considering  the  case  as 
doubtful,  is  it  better  to  proceed  upon  the  supposition 
that  the  end  is  near,  or  upon  the  supposition  that  the 
end  is  not  yet  ? 

This  is  a  question  both  of  principle  and  practice, 
and  the  way  in  which  it  is  decided  may  exert,  as  we 
shall  see,  no  feeble  influence  upon  the  character  and 
life.  It  is  therefore  worthy  of  a  brief  but  serious  con- 
sideration, the  result  of  which  may  serve  as  the  prac- 
tical improvement  of  a  subject  that  might  otherwise 
seem  rather  to  belong  to  the  class  of  curious  and 
subtle  speculations,  than  to  that  of  experimental 
ti'uths  or  Christian  duties.  To  what  quarter  shall  we 
look  then  for  an  adequate  solution  of  this  question  ? 

The  first  consideration  that  presents  itself  is  this  : 
that  the  A^cry  doubt  in  which  the  Scriptures  leave  the 
thing  involved,  creates  a  presumption  that  it  was  not 
meant  to  influence  our  conduct  by  the  expectation  of 
this  great  event  as  just  at  hand.  This,  however,  is  at 
variance  with  the  general  analogy  of  revelation,  in 
which,  though  every  thing  of  absolute  necessity  is 
clear,  yet  many  things  of  high  practical  importance 
are  left  to  be  determined  by  laborious  scrutiny  and 
processes  of  reasoning.  There  is  nothing  therefore 
in  the  mere  dubiety  of  this  case  to  forbid  the  suppo- 
sition that  its  practical  design  was  to  keep  men  in  a 
constant  attitude  of  expectation.    But  the  probability 


MATTHEW  24,  6.  4()9 

of  this  is  greatly  lessened  by  the  fact,  already  shown, 
that  the  proofs  are  not  in  equilibrio,  but  preponderate 
in  favour  of  the  negative  conclusion,  although  insuf- 
ficient to  establish  it.  It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that 
in  order  to  maintain  a  healthful  expectation  of  ap- 
proaching change,  they  would  be  so  mentioned  as  to 
favour  the  belief  that  they  are  still  far  distant.  Noth- 
ing indeed  could  warrant  this  assumption  but  experi- 
mental proof  that  the  belief  just  mentioned  has  neces- 
sarily a  bad  effect.  But  so  far  is  this  from  being 
certain  or  admitted,  that  the  contrary  admits  of  a 
most  plausible  defence.  The  expectation  of  a  speedy 
end  seems  naturally  suited  to  enervate,  nay  to  para- 
lyze exertion,  while  the  opposite  belief  invigorates  it. 
Ko  less  dissimilar  is  the  effect  of  these  two  causes, 
in  relation  to  the  credit  and  authority  of  Scripture. 
The  perpetual  failure  of  the  signs,  which  some  see 
there,  of  instant  dissolution,  though  it  only  proves 
the  falsehood  of  the  principle  assumed,  has  a  practical 
tendency  to  bring  the  word  of  God  itself  into  dis- 
credit, as  if  these  ever-shifting  whims  and  fancies  of 
professed  interpreters  were  really  expedients  necessary 
to  disguise  or  palliate  the  failure  of  predictions  which 
events  have  falsified.  The  existence  of  this  danger  is 
apparent  from  the  ill-concealed  contempt  with  which 
the  irreh'gious  argue,  from  the  failure  of  fanatical 
predictions,  to  the  worthlessness  of  prophecy  in  gen- 
eral. But  no  such  inconvenience  could  result  from 
the  other  supposition,  even  if  it  should  be  falsified  by 
the  gpeedy  occurrence  of  the  thing  which  it  assmnea 
to  be  remote,  because  the  failure  could  occur  but  once, 
and  then  in  circumstances  utterly  exclusive  of  effects 

VOL.  I. — 18 


410  SERMONS. 

L*ke  those  which  have  been  just  described  as  flowing 
from  the  constant  repetition  of  mistake  and  failure 
on  the  part  of  those  who  undertake  to  fix  an  early 
day  and  hour  for  the  end  of  the  world. 

The  other  doctrine  would  seem  therefore  to  be 
safer,  both  as  respects  the  honour  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  the  zeal  of  Christian  enterprise.  The  only  prac- 
tical advantage  of  the  same  kind  which  can  well  be 
claimed  for  the  opposite  opinion  is  that  it  leads  men 
to  be  always  ready,  as  our  Lord  requires.  This  is, 
in  fact,  the  grand  recommendation  of  the  theory,  and 
that  to  which  it  owes  its  currency  among  some  truly 
devout  Christians.  Yet  it  rests  upon  a  fallacy,  for  it 
confounds  the  life  of  individuals  with  the  existence  of 
the  race  on  earth.  The  readiness  which  Christ  re- 
quires of  us  is  a  personal  readiness  to  leave  the  world 
and  meet  our  God.  This  has  existed  in  the  case  of 
thousands  who  had  no  such  expectation  as  the  one  in 
question.  The  necessity  of  this  individual  prepara- 
tion cannot  justify  the  sacrifice  of  higher  interests,  or 
dispense  with  the  discharge  of  duties  which  we  owe 
not  only  to  ourselves  but  to  our  successors,  to  the 
church,  to  society,  to  human  kind. 

This  preparation  too  for  personal  departm-e  is  not 
secured  by  a  belief  in  the  approach  of  the  great  final 
catastrophe.  iN'o  such  belief  has  ever  wrought  it. 
Where  it  really  exists,  it  is  preceded  by  a  due  sense 
of  the  shortness  and  uncertainty  of  life,  and  the  im- 
portance of  the  interests  suspended  on  it,  without  any 
reference  whatever  to  the  subsequent  continuation 
or  destruction  of  the  world.  The  strongest  possible 
persuasion  that  this  world  is  yet  to  last  for  ages,  may 


MATIHEW  24,  6.  411 

exist,  because  ii  nas  existed,  in  connection  with  tlie 
deepest  sense  of  men's  mortality  and  need  of  con- 
stant preparation  for  the  great  change  which  awaits 
them  all  without  exception.  But  if  the  two  convic- 
tions are  thus  perfectly  compatible,  we  cannot  of 
course  argue  from  the  requisition  of  the  one  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  other.  The  duty  of  constant  prep- 
aration for  the  end  of  our  career,  may  be  truly  and 
successfully  performed  by  those  who  honestly  believe 
that  the  existing  state  of  things  is  to  continue  perhaps 
ages  after  they  are  themselves  forgotten. 

It  may  still  be  urged,  however,  that  this  state  of 
mind  exposes  those  who  entertain  it  to  be  taken  by 
surprise.  What,  it  is  sometimes  said,  if  after  all,  the 
great  event  should  be  at  hand,  how  fearful  the  sur- 
prise of  those  who  fancy  it  to  be  still  distant !  Here 
again  we  may  see  traces  of  that  same  confusion  of 
ideas  which  has  been  already  mentioned.  If  men  are 
unprepared  to  die,  they  will  be  just  as  much  sur- 
prised by  death,  as  by  the  coming  of  the  end  while 
they  are  living.  If  prepared  to  die,  they  are  pre- 
pared for  any  thing.  However  great  or  sudden  the 
surprise,  it  cannot  be  to  them  a  fearful  one.  And  if 
divested  of  this  attribute,  surprise  is  not  an  evil.  Joy 
involves  surprise  as  well  as  horror.  Some  of  the  most 
exquisite  sensations  of  delight  which  have  ever  been 
experienced,  have  taken  those  who  felt  them  by  sur- 
prise. Kay,  exclude  all  thought  of  danger,  doubt,  or 
fear  from  your  conception  of  surprise,  and  most  men 
would  deliberately  choose  it,  in  preference  even  to  the 
fullest  opportunity  of  calculation,  measurement,  and 
deliberate  foresight.     But  whether  this  be  so  or  not, 


il  2  SERMOXS 

WO  know  that  the  catastrophe  in  question  will  take 
most  men  by  snrj)rise  at  last,  and  not  only  the  un- 
thinking and  the  reckless,  but  the  sober,  the  eonsid 
crate,  the  wise. 

This  seems  to  be  a  necessary  feature  of  the  provi- 
dential scheme  imperfectly  disclosed  to  us  in  Scrip- 
ture ;  and  among  the  means  by  which  it  is  secured, 
may  probably  be  reckoned  that  very  ambiguity  of 
Scripture  which  has  given  rise  to  so  much  fruitless 
controversy,  and  to  so  many  vain  attempts  to  render 
clear  and  definite,  w^hat  God  has  left  obscure  and 
vague  until  the  time  for  a  fuller  revelation  shall  have 
come.  There  is  no  advantage,  therefore,  upon  either 
side  in  this  respect,  and  if  there  were,  there  would  be 
nothing  in  the  mere  risk  of  surprise,  even  though  it 
were  unavoidable,  to  make  the  state  of  the  believer 
less  secure,  or  that  of  the  unbeliever  more  so. 

If  it  be  true,  then,  that  the  supposition  of  a  distant 
end  diverts  the  thoughts  of  men  from  this  great 
change,  it  is  only  by  transferring  them  to  one  still 
more  momentous,  because  more  closely  connected 
with  the  loss  or  gain  of  personal  salvation,  because 
perfectly  inevitable  in  reference  to  every  individual 
of  every  generation  but  the  last,  and  because  accord- 
ing to  the  most  indulgent  computation,  "  not  far  from 
every  one  of  us."  Whether  we  look  then  at  the 
absence  of  all  certain  indications  that  the  end  of  the 
world  is  at  hand,  or  at  the  existence  of  some  striking 
proof  that  it  is  still  far  distant,  or  at  the  practical 
effect  of  both  opinions,  we  may  safely  rest  in  the  con- 
clusion, that  so  far  as  we  can  judge  at  all,  the  end  is 
not  yet,  and  that  so  far  as  we  are  in  doubt,  it  is  better 


MATTHEW  24,  G.  413 

for  ourselves  and  (.ithers  to  si.ipf£>se  that  the  end  is 
not  yet  than  to  suppose  the  contrary. 

Tlie  practical  conclusion  to  which  these  theoretical 
conclusions  ])oint  is  obvious  enough.  Let  us  first  of 
all  prepare  to  die,  and  thus  in  the  most  effectual  way 
prepare  to  live.  This  preparation  is  of  course  not  to 
be  made  by  needlessly  anticipating  cares  which  are  ap- 
propriate only  to  the  time  of  actual  departure,  but  by 
the  doing  of  our  present  duty,  in  reliance  upon  that 
grace  which  provides  for  all  emergencies,  but  seldom 
grants  to  one  the  aid  appropriate  to  another.  Having 
made  this  indispensable  provision  for  the  future,  let  us 
cease  to  look  upon  our  own  salvation  as  the  final  cause 
of  all  that  God  is  doing.  Let  us  look  away  from  our 
minute  concerns  to  that  stupendous  whole,  of  which 
they  form  an  indispensable  though  humble  part.  In- 
stead of  feeling  and  acting  as  if  all  must  die  with  us, 
let  us  continue,  until  God  shall  teach  us  otherwise,  to 
cherish  the  belief  and  expectation  of  a  glorious  work 
yet  to  be  accomplished  even  here,  of  which  the 
changes  which  we  now  behold  are  not  the  end  but 
the  bee:innini>r.  Let  us  not  shriiik  even  from  the 
thought  that  unknown  evils  are  yet  to  be  experienced 
before  the  good  can  be  finally  triumphant.  Through 
the  clouds  of  such  anticipations  we  may  still  discern 
the  clear  sky  of  better  days  to  come  ;  nay  even  in  the 
mean  time,  we  may  see  the  storm  and  sunshine  striv- 
ing for  the  mastery,  and  although  we  may  be  forced 
to  say,  as  one  disaster  treads  upon  the  heels  of  its 
forerunner,  "  these  are  but  the  beginning  of  sorrows," 
we  may  still  console  ourselves  by  looking  further  off 
to  still  remoter  changes,  saying  the  end  is  not  yet. 


4-14  BERMONS. 

Lot  this  not  only  solace  but  incite  us.  At  every 
new  stage  of  our  course,  when  we  are  tempted  to 
imagine  our  work  done,  let  this  word  rouse  us, 
the  end  is  not  yet.  Let  the  same  conviction  follow 
through  life.  "Whatever  you  may  seem  to  have 
already  suifered  or  accomplished,  still  remember  that 
the  end  is  not  yet ;  and  from  the  midst  of  your  trials, 
your  perplexities,  your  errors,  your  temptations,  yes, 
your  doubts  of  God  himself,  still  force  yourselves  to 
look  even  on  the  beginning  of  sorrows  as  prophetic  of 
their  end,  and  to  take  refuge  from  the  worst  that  can 
befall  you,  or  the  cause  for  which  you  live,  for  which 
you  die,  in  the  fixed  persuasion  that  with  reference 
both  to  labour  and  reward,  "  the  end  is  not  by  and 
by."  The  time,  indeed,  is  coming  when  the  same  thing 
can  no  longer  be  said  equally  of  both.  Yes,  the  time 
is  coming  when  these  present  light  afflictions  shall  be 
past,  forgotten,  "  as  a  dream  when  one  awaketh,"  but 
at  no  point  of  your  history  more  truly  than  at  that, 
will  you  be  justified  in  saying  as  you  look  forward  to 
the  glory  that  awaits  you,  "  these  are  but  the  begin* 
nings  of  an  everlasting  life, — the  end  is  not  yet." 


IJID    OF    VOL.    L 


SERMONS. 


JOSEPH  ADDISON  ALEXANDER,  D.D 


TWO     VOLUMES     IN     ONE. 

VOLUME    II. 


NEW  YORK: 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER  &  CO  ,  654  BROADWAY. 

1870. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  I860,  by 

CHARLES    SCKIBNEK, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southern 

District  of  New  York. 


JOHN  F.  TROW, 

rKIinKB,  rTEREOTVPKR,   AND  ■LKCTROTTm, 

50  Greene  Street,  New  York. 


CONTENTS  or  VOLUME  H. 


EpnKsiANS  5,  14. — Awake  thou  that  sleepest,  and  arise  from  the 
dead,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light, 6 

II. 
Mark  14,  41. — Sleep  on  now,  and  take  your  rest :  it  is  enough,  the 
hour  is  come ;  behold,  the  Son  of  Man  is  betrayed  into  the 
hands  of  sinners, 30 

III. 
Matthew  11,  12. — From  the  days  of  John  the  Baptist  until  now, 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  suffereth  violence,  and  the  violent  take 
it  by  force, 60 

IV. 
Isaiah  55, 1. — Ho,  every  one  that  thirstcth,  come  ye  to  the  waters, 
and  he  that  hath  no  money,  come  ye,  buy  and  cat :  yea,  come, 
buy  wine  and  milk,  without  money  and  without  price,     .        .     69 

V. 
Isaiah  55,  2. — Wherefore  do  ye  spend  money  for  that  which  is 
not  bread  ?  and   your  labour  for  that  which  satisfieth  not  ? 
Hearken  diligently  unto  me,  and  cat  ye  that  which  is  good, 
and  let  your  soul  delight  itself  in  fatness,       '        .        .        .88 


4  CONTEXTS  OF  YOLUME  JI. 

FAGS 
VI. 

Isaiah  55,  6. — Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  he  may  be  found,  call  ye 
upon  him  while  he  is  near, 106 

VII. 

PniLippiANS  3,  13.  14. — Brethren,  I  count  not  myself  to  have  ap- 
prehended :  but  this  one  thing  I  do,  forgetting  those  things 
which  arc  behind,  and  reaching  forth  unto  those  things  which 
are  before,  I  press  towards  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high 
calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus, 126 

VIII. 

Luke  18,  1-8. — And  he  spake  a  parable  unto  them  to  this  end, 
that  men  ought  always  to  pray,  and  not  to  faint ;  saying, 
There  was  in  a  city  a  judge,  which  feared  not  God,  neither  re- 
garded man  :  And  there  was  a  widow  in  that  city ;  and  she 
came  unto  him,  saying,  Avenge  me  of  mine  adversary.  And 
he  would  not  for  a  while  :  but  afterward  he  said  within  him- 
self, though  I  fear  not  God,  nor  regard  man ;  yet  because 
this  widow  troubleth  me,  I  will  avenge  her,  lest  by  her  con- 
tinual coming  she  weary  me.  And  the  Lord  said,  hear  what 
the  unjust  judge  saith.  And  shall  not  God  avenge  his  own 
elect,  which  cry  day  and  night  unto  him,  though  he  bear  long 
with  them  ?  I  tell  you  that  he  will  avenge  them  speedily. 
Nevertheless,  when  the  Son  of  man  cometh,  shall  he  find  faith 
on  the  earth  ? 141 

IX. 

2  Kings  17,  33. — They  feared  the  Lord,  and  served  their  own 
gods, 161 

X. 

PniLippiANS  4,  13. — I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ  which 
strengtheneth  me, 183 

XI. 
Psalm  51,  1. — Purge  me  with  hyssop,  and  I  shall  be  clean;  wash 
mc,  and  I  shall  bo  whiter  than  snow, 199 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  II.  5» 

PAGB 
XII. 

Luke  13,  3.  (and  5.) — Except  ye  lepeiit,  ye  shall  all  likewise 
perish, 213 

XIII. 

Isaiah  53,  3. — lie  is  despised  aud  rejected  of  men,      .        .        .  235 

XIV. 
Hebrews  11,  10. — He  looked  for  a  city  which  hath  foundations, 
whose  Ibuildcr  and  maker  is  God, 252 

XV. 

1  Thessaloxians  5,  25. — Brethren,  pray  for  us,   .        .        .        .  2Y4 

XVI. 

Revelation  14,  1 2. — Here  is  the  patience  of  the  saints ;  here 
are  they  that  keep  the  commandments  of  God  and  the  faith 
of  Jesus, 294 

XVII. 

2  Timothy  2,  9.— The  word  of  God  is  not  bound,  .         .         .309 

XVIII. 
Psalm  8,  1.  9. — 0  Lord,  our  Lord,  how  excellent  is  thy  name  in 
all  the  earth ! 331 

XIX. 

Jons  17,  3. — ^This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  might  know  thee,  the 
only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom  thou  hast  sent,    .         .  353 

XX. 
Psalm  51,  17. — The  sacrifices  of  God  arc  a  broken  spirit :  a  broken 
and  a  contrite  heart,  0  God,  thou  wilt  not  despise,  .        .  368 


6  CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  II. 

piai 
XXI. 

James  1,  2-8. — My  brethren,  count  it  all  joy  when  ye  foil  into 
divers  temptations ;  knowing  this,  that  the  trying  of  your  faith 
worketh  patience.  But  let  patience  have  her  perfect  work, 
that  ye  may  be  perfect  and  entire,  wanting  nothing.  If  any 
of  you  lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God,  that  giveth  to  all 
men  liberally,  and  upbraideth  not ;  and  it  shall  be  given 
him.  But  let  him  ask  in  faith,  nothing  wavering:  for  he 
that  wavereth  is  like  a  wave  of  the  sea  driven  with  the  wind 
and  tossed.  For  let  not  that  man  think  that  he  shall  receive 
any  thing  of  the  Lord.  A  double-minded  man  is  unstable  in 
all  his  ways,    .        .        .        .        • 891 

XXII. 

Isaiah  5,  20. — Woe  unto  them  that  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil ; 
that  put  darkness  for  light,  a  id  light  for  darkness ;  that  put 
bitter  for  sweet,  and  sweet  for  bitter, 409 


SERMONS. 


I. 


Ephesians  5,  14. — Awake  thou  that  slcepest,  and  arise  from  the 
dead,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light. 

If  we  would  profit  by  the  reading  of  the  Scrip* 
tures,  we  must  not  take  partial,  superficial  views  of 
them.  We  must  not  be  governed  too  much  by  the 
form  in  which  the  truth  is  clothed.  K  that  form  be 
poetical,  we  must  not  regard  the  passage  as  mere 
poetry  ;  or  if  parabolical,  as  mere  parable ;  or  if  his- 
torical, as  nothing  more  than  history.  In  like  manner 
it  would  be  a  serious  mistake  to  regard  the  devotional 
parts  of  Scripture  as  mere  vehicles  of  individual  sen- 
timent. But  the  error  of  this  kind,  into  which  we 
are  most  apt  to  fall,  has  reference  to  the  doctrinal  and 
hortatory  parts  of  Scripture.  Our  knowledge  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  Bible  will  be  small,  if  we  de- 
rive it  wholly  from  the  formal  doctrinal  propositions 
which  the  book  contains.  And  on  the  other  hand, 
our  views  of  Christian  duty  must  be  limited,  if  they 
are  formed  exclusively  upon  the  strictly  preceptive 


g  SERMONS. 

parts  of  Scripture.  Tlie  truth,  is,  that  the  doctrinal 
and  practical  run  constantly  into  each  other.  Every 
doctrinal  statement  involves  a  precept,  and  every  ex- 
hortation involves  doctrinal  instruction.  For  exam- 
ple, in  the  doctrine,  that  except  a  man  be  born  again 
he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God,  what  a  lesson  do 
we  learn  as  to  our  own  interest  and  duty.  "What 
could  be  a  stronger  exhortation  to  the  duty  of  seeking 
admittance  to  God's  kingdom  by  means  of  the  new 
birth  ?  As  an  opposite  example,  take  the  text  which 
I  have  read.  It  consists  entirely  of  an  exhortation 
with  a  promise  to  encourage  the  performance.  And 
yet  it  is  full  of  doctrinal  instruction.  AVhile  it  for- 
mally does  nothing  more  than  call  us  to  the  perform- 
ance of  certain  duties,  it  impliedly  teaches  us  truths 
to  be  believed.  And  as  truth  is  in  order  to  goodness, 
it  is  vain  to  expect  that  men  will  practise  the  pre- 
ceptive part  which  lies  upon  the  surface,  without  com- 
prehending and  believing  the  doctrinal  part  which 
lies  back  of  it. 

In  order  to  illustrate  this  whole  statement,  let  us 
discriminate  between  the  doctrinal  and  practical  ele- 
ments combined  in  the  text,  and  inquire  first  what  it 
calls  us  to  believe,  and  then  what  it  calls  us  to  do. 
The  doctrinal  lessons  which  it  calls  us  to  believe  may 
be  reduced  to  two.  It  teaches  us,  first,  what  is  our 
natural  condition ;  and  second,  how  it  maybe  changed. 
Let  us  look  at  both  in  order. 

The  text  impliedly  describes  our  state  by  several 
figures,  all  of  which  are  natural  and  intelligible.  It 
describes  it,  in  the  fii'st  place,  as  a  state  of  darkness. 
I  read  this  doctrine  in  the  last  clause  of  the  verse;. 


EPHESIANS  5,  14.  9 

and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light.  If  the  change  here 
spoken  of  was  to  consist  in  the  imj)arting  of  light, 
then  the  previous  condition  of  the  soul  was  one  of 
darkness.  This  figure  is  so  natural  and  common  in 
the  Scriptures  that  it  needs  no  explanation.  Light  in 
the  external  world  is  the  element  or  medium  by  which 
we  see  other  objects.  Darkness  precludes  light,  not 
by  extinguishing  the  sense,  but  by  rendering  it  use- 
less. So  spiritual  darkness  destroys  our  power  of 
discerning  spiritual  objects,  not  by  impairing  the 
substance  of  the  soul,  nor  by  destroying  any  of  its 
faculties,  but  by  rendering  them  inefficient  and  un- 
available. Tlie  objects  are  still  there ;  and  the  nat- 
ural powers  of  the  soul  are  there ;  but  darkness  cuts 
off  all  connection  between  them,  and  therefore  it  is  as 
insensible  to  spiritual  objects,  as  if  they  had  no  exist- 
ence, or  as  if  itself  had  no  capacity  to  see  them. 

This,  at  least,  is  the  case  just  so  far  as  the  spiritual 
darkness  reaches ;  but  in  order  to  present  the  case 
exactly,  three  gradations  may  be  stated,  three  degrees 
of  darkness,  as  it  affects  the  soul  and  its  perceptions. 
The  first  and  highest  is  that  which  has  been  men- 
tioned, and  in  which  the  soul  has  no  perception  at  all 
of  spiritual  objects  or  "  the  things  of  God,"  which  are, 
to  it,  as  though  they  were  not.  llie  second  degree 
is  that  in  which  it  sees  the  objects  as  existmg,  but  is 
blind  to  their  distinguishing  qualities  and  relative 
proportions.  The  third  is  that  in  which  the  qualities 
are  seen,  but  not  appreciated ;  they  are  seen  to  exist, 
but  not  seen  to  be  excellent  or  the  reverse.  This,  if 
I  may  use  so  inaccurate  a  phrase,  is  not  so  much  a 
darkness  of  the  mind  as  of  the  heart ;  a  blindness  of 


;[0  SERMONS. 

the  affections  as  to  spiritual  objects.  Now  it  is  not 
necessary,  for  our  present  purpose,  to  make  nice  dis- 
tinctions as  to  the  existence  of  either  of  these  degrees 
of  darkness  in  different  cases.  They  may  all  co-exist 
in  the  same  case,  but  with  respect  to  different  objects. 
There  are  some  things  of  a  spiritual  and  religious  na- 
ture, of  which  the  natural  man  may  form  distinct 
ideas,  and  about  which  he  may  reason,  i.  e.  about 
their  existence  and  their  attributes.  But  he  is  no 
more  able  to  perceive  or  feel  their  excellence,  than  a 
blind  man  to  enjoy  varieties  of  colour.  Well,  there 
are  things  of  a  still  higher  order  which  the  natural 
man  may  see  to  be  real ;  but  he  not  only  cannot  see 
the  absolute  or  comparative  excellence  of  their  attri- 
butes, he  cannot  see  the  attributes  themselves.  Tlie 
objects  are  to  him  a  confused  maze  without  definite 
figures  or  proportions.  He  sees  them  as  trees  walk- 
ing. And  above  these  there  are  others  of  the  high- 
est excellence  which  he  neither  appreciates  as  excel- 
lent, nor  recognizes  as  possessing  an  existence.  He 
is  blind  to  them.  So  far  as  he  is  affected  by  them, 
they  might  as  well  not  be.  And  as  these  last  are 
thino-s  which  must  be  known,  in  order  to  salvation, 
it  matters  little  what  imperfect  vision  he  may  have  of 
other  matters.  His  darkness  may  be  described  as 
total,  because  it  destroys  his  view  of  those  things 
without  which  the  sight  of  others  avails  nothing.  In 
this  sense  our  state  by  nature  is  a  state  of  total  dark- 
ness. 

Kow  darkness  affects  only  the  sense  of  sight.  A 
man  may  grope  in  darkness,  he  may  feel  his  way, 
and  he  may  judge  of  what  he  cannot  see,  by  hearing, 


EPHESIANS  5,  U.  H 

smell,  and  taste.  Such  a  condition  is  indeed  incon- 
venient, but  it  does  not  destroy  the  man's  percep- 
tions. K,  then,  spiritual  darkness  is  analogous  to  nat- 
ural, though  it  impair  the  comfort  of  the  soul  by 
blinding  its  eyes,  it  may  leave  it  other  means  of 
knowing  that  which  must  be  known  in  order  to  sal- 
ration.  But  observe :  a  man  can  grope  his  way  and 
use  his  other  senses  to  advantage  only  when  awake. 
There  are  somnambulists,  indeed,  but  as  a  general  fact, 
the  man  who  contrives  to  live  in  safety,  though  in 
darkness,  must  be  wide  awake. 

But  alas !  our  text  teaches  us  that  our  spiritual 
state  is  not  only  a  state  of  darkness,  but  a  state  of 
sleep.  This  I  infer  from  the  command  in  the  first 
clause :  Awake  thou  that  sleepest.  Now  sleep  is 
more  than  darkness.  Darkness  is  included  in  it.  To 
him  who  is  asleep  the  external  world  is  dark.  But 
what  is  there  besides  implied  in  sleep  ?  The  man 
who  is  asleep  has  his  senses  sealed ;  not  his  sight 
merely,  but  his  other  senses.  External  objects  are 
to  him  as  though  they  were  not.  So  to  the  sleeping 
soul,  all  that  lies  beyond  this  life  and  its  interests,  is 
veiled  from  view.  It  might  as  well  not  be.  But 
while  the  senses  of  the  sleeper  are  suspended,  his 
imagination  is  awake  and  active.  The  more  insen- 
sible  he  is  of  that  which  really  surrounds  him,  the 
more  prolific  is  his  fancy  in  ideal  objects.  Tliough 
dead  to  the  every-day  world,  he  is  alive  to  an  imagi- 
naiy  world.  So  powerful  is  the  illusion,  and  so  vivid 
the  creations  of  the  fancy,  that  he  lives  whole  years 
in  a  single  hour,  a  lifetime  in  a  night.  Our  spiritual 
state  is  also  one  of  dreams.    The  life  of  the  natural 


12  SERMONS. 

man  is  but  a  dream.  He  sees,  lie  hears,  lie  feels ;  but 
the  objects  of  his  hearing,  sight,  and  feeling,  are 
imaginary.  Tliey  are  either  wholly  fictitious,  or  dis- 
torted and  falsified  by  the  imagination.  That  the  un- 
regenerate  man  enjoys  a  certain  kind  of  pleasure,  is 
not  more  wonderful  than  that  the  dreamer  has  his 
pleasures  too.  That  the  one  despises  the  enjoyments 
of  religion  is  no  more  surprising  than  the  other  is 
unwilling  to  exchange  the  joys  of  sleep  for  the  real- 
ities of  waking  life.  In  either  case  the  judgment  is 
perverted  or  suspended.  Who  does  not  know  that  in 
our  dreams  we  form  opinions  and  conclusions  which 
to  our  waking  minds  appear  absurd ;  and  yet  while 
we  are  dreaming,  we  have  no  suspicion  that  they 
want  consistency  or  truth.  Why  should  we  wonder 
then  that  souls,  which  are  asleep,  form  opinions  so 
extravagant,  so  groundless,  so  preposterous,  and  con- 
fidently hold  them,  till  the  grace  of  God  awakens 
them  and  shows  them  their  own  folly  ?  Here  let  us 
learn  too  the  absurdity  of  yielding  our  own  judg- 
ments, if  enlightened  by  the  grace  of  God,  to  "the 
contempt  or  opposition  of  the  sleeping  world  around 
us.  Will  any  sane  man  let  his  judgment  in  impor- 
tant matters  of  the  present  life  be  afifected  by  the 
babble  of  one  talking  in  his  sleep. 

I  have  named  as  points  of  similarity  between  nat- 
ural and  spiritual  sleep,  the  inaction  of  the  senses,  the 
indulgence  of  the  fancy,  and  the  suspension  of  the 
judgment.  Let  me  add  the  inactivity  of  the  whole 
man,  as  to  external  things ;  the  sorrows,  joys,  and 
business  of  the  world  around  him.  Tlie  natural 
sleeper  is  not  more  completely  paralyzed  for  seculaf 


EPHESIANS  5,  14.  13 

concerns,  tlian  the  sonl  asleep  in  sin  is  for  tlie  busi- 
ness of  eternity.  The  existence  of  the  sleeper  is  a 
blank  in  either  case.  Tliis,  then,  is  the  meaning  of 
the  text,  when  it  describes  us  as  sunk  in  sleep  as  "vvcU 
as  wrapped  in  darkness.  Not  only  are  our  eyes  sealed 
to  the  truth,  and  to  our  own  condition,  but  we  are 
the  subjects  of  perpetual  illusion.  Darkness  alone 
would  be  a  mere  negation ;  but  a  darkness  full  of 
dreams  and  visions  is  a  positive  infliction.  It  mat- 
ters not  that  the  illusions  are  of  a  pleasing  nature. 
That  can  only  aggravate  the  pain  of  our  awaking. 
Did  you  ever  forget  any  of  the  pains  of  real  life  in 
a  delightful  dream  ?  And  do  you  not  remember  the 
convulsive  pang  with  which  the  truth  rushed  back 
upon  your  waking  thoughts  ?  And  can  you  imagine 
that  the  anguish  will  be  less  when  the  dream  of  a 
whole  lifetime  is  abruptly  broken  ?  Or  if  you  know 
what  it  is  to  be  aroused  by  harsh  and  grating  noises 
from  a  pleasant  dream,  do  you  suppose  that  your  long 
dream  will  be  agreeably  dissolved  by  the  blast  of  the 
gi'cat  trumpet?  It  is  related  by  one  of  those  wlio 
witnessed  and  experienced  a  late  explosion,  that  when 
it  occurred  he  was  asleep,  and  that  his  first  sensation 
was  a  pleasant  one,  as  though  he  had  been  flying 
through  the  air.  He  opened  his  eyes,  and  he  was  in 
the  sea !  May  there  not  be  something  analogous  to 
this  in  the  sensations  of  the  sinner,  who  dies  with  his 
soul  asleep,  and  soars,  as  he  imagines,  towards  the 
skies,  but  instantaneously  awakes  amidst  the  roar  of 
tempests  and  the  lash  of  waves,  upon  the  ocean  of 
God's  wrath  ?  The  Lord  preserve  us  all  from  such  a 
waking,  yet  it  is  to  this  that  our  condition  tends — it 


14  SERMONS. 

is  a  state  of  darkness  and  a  state  of  sleep.  Accord- 
ing to  the  ancients,  Sleep  is  the  brother  of  Death ; 
and  the  resemblance  is  too  obvious  to  be  overlooked. 

In  all  the  negative  attributes  of  sleep  which  have 
been  mentioned,  death  resembles  it.  In  death  the 
senses  are  effectually  sealed  ;  the  functions  of  the 
judgment  are  suspended,  and  the  active  powers  of 
the  man  are  in  abeyance.  It  is  frequently  not  easy 
to  distinguish  sleep  from  death.  The  repose  is  so 
profound,  the  frame  so  motionless,  that  one  who  looks 
upon  it  feels  that  Sleep  is  indeed  the  brother  of 
Death.  But  I  need  not  say  that  death  is  more  than 
sleep.  And  wherein  is  the  difference?  He  that 
sleeps  may  wake  again,  and  the  suspension  of  his 
senses  and  his  judgment  may  be  terminated  by  his 
simply  starting  out  of  sleep.  But  in  death,  the  intel- 
lectual and  bodily  inaction  are  continuous  and  per- 
manent. There  have  Ifeen  instances  in  which  the 
body  washed  and  dressed  for  burial,  has  amazed  its 
watchers,  by  resuming  its  vitality ;  but  in  such  cases 
the  death  was  an  apparent  one.  The  man  once  dead 
never  starts  again  to  life  by  a  convulsive  effort.  As 
the  tree  falls,  so  it  lies. 

In  these  two  points  Death  differs  from  his  brother ; 
the  suspension  of  the  faculties  is  permanent,  and  there 
is  no  power  of  self-resuscitation.  Now  the  text  teaches 
that  the  soul  by  nature  is  not  only  dark  and  asleep, 
but  dead.  It  says  not  only,  "  Awake  thou  that  sleep- 
est !  "  but,  "  Arise  from  the  dead  !  "  And  in  every 
point  that  has  been  mentioned,  this  death  of  the  soul 
is  like  that  of  the  body.  It  is  sleep  rendered  perma- 
nent, as  to  the  suspension  of  our  ordinary  functions ; 


EPHESIANS  5,  14.  15 

it  is  a  sleep  too  sound  to  be  disturbed,  a  sleep  from 
whicb  no  one  rises  of  himself,  refreshed  in  feeling  and 
renewed  in  strength.  Even  with  respect  to  dreams 
death  may  be  described  as  a  continued  sleep. 

"  For  in  that  sleep  of  death  what  dreams  may  come, 
When  we  have  shuffled  off  this  mortal  coil, 
Must  give  us  pause." 

But  there  is  one  distinction  between  sleep  and 
death,  whether  natural  or  spiritual,  that  must  not  be 
overlooked.  In  natural  sleep,  although  the  senses 
are  inactive,  and  the  judgment  in  abeyance,  and  the 
whole  man  dead  as  to  external  things,  the  body  is 
still  under  the  conservative  dominion  of  the  principle 
of  life.  That  mysterious  power  holds  the  elements  of 
humanity  in  healthful  combination,  and  the  man 
still  lives.  But  in  the  sleep  of  death,  this  antiseptic 
energy  is  gone ;  the  harmonious  combination  is  dis- 
solved ;  the  parts  all  tend  to  dissolution,  and  the 
whole  frame  hastens  to  putrescence.  This  is  a  subject 
too  familiar  and  too  painful  to  be  dwelt  upon  at  large. 
It  is  sufficient  to  observe  that  on  this  point  also  the 
analogy  holds  gooi,^  Tlie  spiritual  death  to  which 
we  are  all  heirs,  is  something  more  than  a  negation 
of  activity  It  might  be  said  of  the  soul,  as  the  dis- 
ciples said  of  Lazarus  :  If  he  sleeps  he  shall  do  well : 
he  may  arise  from  this  lethargic  state  to  life  and  ac- 
tion. But  in  spiritual  death  there  is  a  constant  ten- 
dency to  moral  dissolution  ;  or  rather,  since  this  ten- 
dency begins  to  show  itself  as  soon  as  we  are  bom,  it 
is  forever  growing,  the  majority  of  men  exhibit  not  a 
mere  approach  to  it,  but  actual  putrefaction.     "  Tliey 


1Q  SERMONS. 

are  altogether  become  filthy."  If  our  eyes  could  be 
unsealed  and  disabused  of  all  illusion,  we  should  see 
ourselves  to  be  by  nature  inmates  of  a  charnel-house, 
surrounded  by  the  shapeless  remnants  of  dissolved 
humanity,  inhaling  every  moment  the  dank  atmos- 
phere of  death,  and  feeling  in  our  own  frames  the 
first  gnawings  of'  the  worm  that  breeds  corruption. 
Yes,  our  state  by  nature  is  not  only  one  of  sleep,  but 
one  of  death  and  putrefaction. 

Tliis  might  seem  to  be  all ;  but  we  must  take 
another  step,  and  one  of  great  importance.  If  men 
are  convinced  merely  that  their  condition  is  a 
wretched  and  degraded  one,  they  are  prone  to  feel 
a  sort  of  satisfaction  in  the  fact,  as  if  their  misery 
entitled  them  to  pity  and  respect.  Tliis  absurd  and 
pernicious  feeling  springs  entirely  from  the  false  as- 
sumption that  our  wretched  state  by  nature  is  a 
blameless  one  ;  that  our  depravity  is  not  so  much  our 
fault  as  our  misfortune.  Hence  you  will  hear  men 
converse  fluently  about  their  own  con-upt  and  fallen 
state,  who  would  repel  with  rage  any  specific  charge 
involving  moral  guilt.  To  do  away  this  false  impres- 
sion, we  have  only  to  observe  tbmt,  according  to  our 
text,  the  state  of  man  by  nature  is  not  alone  one  of 
darkness,  sleep,  and  death,  but  one  of  guilt.  This  is 
implied  in  the  whole  exhortation  of  the  text.  Tlie 
sleeper  is  evidently  called  on  to  awake,  as  that  which 
he  was  bound  to  do ;  and  the  dead  man  is  summoned 
to  arise,  as  though  he  had  no  right  to  remain  in  that 
condition.  Every  exhortation  to  perform  a  duty  in- 
volves a  condemnation  of  its  neglect  as  sinful. 

But  the  sinfulness  of  that  estate  whereinto  we  are 


EPHESIANS  5,  14.  lY 

fallen,  is  evinced  not  merely  by  the  form  of  speech 
which  the  apostle  nses.  It  is  also  apparent  from  the 
nature  of  the  case.  The  will  of  God  is  to  us  the  rule 
of  right,  and  every  departure  of  our  will  from  his,  is 
a  departure  from  strict  rectitude,  and  therefore  sin. 
Now  the  spiritual  darkness,  sleep,  and  death  before 
described,  are  nothing  more  than  figurative  statements 
of  our  deadly  alienation  from  the  love  of  God,  the 
defection  of  our  will  from  his,  and  consequently  our 
exceeding  sinfulness.  There  is  no  true  test  of  right 
and  wrong  to  which  we  can  refer  ourselves,  that  will 
not  show  our  natural  condition  to  be  one  of  awful 
guilt  as  well  as  misery. 

And  if  a  state  of  guilt,  it  is  a  state  of  danger. 
For  guilt  is  our  exposure  to  the  wrath  of  God  as  a 
consequence  of  sin.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that 
this  statement  is  at  variance  with  the  fi^nrative  Ian- 
guage  of  the  text ;  for  though  a  state  of  darkness  or 
of  sleep  may  be  dangerous,  a  state  of  death  can 
scarcely  be  so  called.  The  evils  of  tliis  life  terminate 
in  death,  which  cannot  therefore  be  called  dangerous. 
But  danger  may  be  predicated  properly  of  all  the  sit- 
uations which  are  figuratively  set  forth  in  the  text, 
because  they  all  admit  of  increase  and  progi-essive 
aggravation.  Dark  as  the  soul  is,  it  may  yet  be 
darker.  It  admits,  as  w^e  have  seen,  of  difterent  gra- 
dations. To  some  objects  we  arc  totally  blind. 
Others  we  see  imperfectly,  and  others  still  distinctly, 
but  without  a  just  appreciation  of  their  real  attributes. 
Kow,  by  continuance  in  a  state  of  darloiess,  our  per- 
ceptions of  this  last  class  may  become  as  faint  as  those 
of  the  preceding ;  and  ultimately  both  degrees  of  twi- 


;j^3  SERMONS. 

liglit  may  be  merged  in  midnight  darkness ;  a  dark- 
ness -wliicli  not  only  destroys  vision,  but  wbicli  may 
be  felt,  deadening  the  senses  and  bennmbing  all  the 
faculties.  There  is  something  dreadful  in  the  thought 
of  such  a  change,  even  in  relation  to  the  bodily  per 
ceptions.  To  see  one  source  of  reflected  light  after 
another  quenched,  and  at  last  to  witness  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  sun  itself,  and  the  annihilation  of  all  light, 
is  terrible  enough.  But  not  so  terrible  in  truth  as 
the  removal  of  all  spiritual  light,  and  the  gradual  ad- 
vance of  darkness,  till,  like  a  funeral  pall,  it  over- 
spreads the  universe,  confounding  all  distinctions,  and 
commingling  all  objects  in  the  chaos  of  a  night  that 
has  no  twilight  and  no  morning.  Oh,  it  is  one  thing 
to  imagine  such  a  state  of  things,  while  actually  in 
possession  of  a  thousand  radiating  lustrous  points,  im- 
parting the  reflected  light  of  heaven  to  our"  souls  ;  but 
quite  another  thing  to  see  them  all  grow  dark  in 
quick  succession,  and  to  feel  the  darkness  creeping  to 
our  inmost  souls. 

If  such  a  change  be  possible,  then  surely  a  state 
of  spiritual  darkness  is  a  state  of  danger.  And  is  not 
spiritual  sleep  likewise  a  state  of  danger  ?  May  not 
that  sleep  become  sounder  and  sounder,  and  the 
sleeper  more  and  more  insensible  of  all  surrounding 
objects  ?  May  not  the  chances  of  his  ever  waking  be- 
come less  and  less,  until  the  case  is  desperate  ?  Have 
you  not  heard  of  sick  men  who  have  fallen,  to  ap- 
pearance, into  sweet  and  gentle  slumber,  the  supposed 
precursor  of  returning  health,  and  never  waked  again  ? 
Oh,  there  are  doubtless  many  spiritual  invalids  who 
come  to  a  like  end.     After  a  life  of  irreligion  and  of 


EPHESIANS  5,  14.  19 

vice,  they  experience  a  few  pangs  of  compunction, 
and  subside  into  a  state  of  calm  quiescence,  equally 
free  from  the  excesses  of  gross  sin,  and  the  positive 
exercises  of  a  renewed  heart.  In  this  soft  slumber 
they  remain  amidst  the  thunders  of  the  law  and  the 
gospel,  confident  of  their  own  salvation,  and  un- 
moved by  what  is  said  to  men  as  sinners.  And  in 
this  somnolent  condition  they  remain,  until  the  taking 
of  rest  in  sleep  is  followed  by  the  sleep  of  death.  No 
waking  interval  seems  to  show  them  their  true  situa- 
tion, and  they  are  not  undeceived  until  the  first  flash 
of  eternal  daylight  forces  their  eyes  open. 

Is  not  spiritual  sleep  a  state  of  danger  then  ?  All 
this  will  be  readily  conceded,  but  the  question  still  re- 
curs :  how  can  death  be  properly  a  state  of  danger  ?  A 
man  in  the  dark  may  be  exposed  to  peril  on  the  margin 
of  a  precipice,  and  so  may  he  who  is  asleep  upon  the 
top  of  a  mast ;  for  both  are  exposed  to  sudden  death. 
But  when  already  dead,  where  is  the  danger  ?  Is  not 
death  a  state  of  safety  as  to  temporal  perils  ?  The 
answer  to  this  question  involves  a  striking  difference 
between  natural  and  spiritual  death.  The  death  of 
the  body,  as  it  simply  puts  an  end  to  all  the  vital 
functions,  is  an  absolute  and  changeless  state,  admit- 
ting no  gradations ;  whereas  spiritual  death  is  some- 
thing positive,  and  constantly  progressive.  The  man 
who  died  yesterday  is  just  as  dead  to-day  as  he  will 
be  to-morrow.  But  the  dead  soul  becomes  more  dead 
every  day  and  every  hour.  The  process  of  corruption 
never  ceases,  and,  if  the  soul  continues  dead,  never 
■will  cease.  Tlie  worm  that  feeds  upon  the  carcass  of 
the  dead  soul  is  a  worm  that  never  dies,  and  the  tire 


20  >  SERMONS. 

that  decomposes,  it  is  never  quenclied.  What  we  call 
spiritual  death  in  this  world  sinks  from  one  degree  of 
putrefaction  to  another,  till  it  gets  beyond  the  reachj 
not  only  of  restorative,  hut  of  embalming  processes, 
until  it  is  resolved  into  eternal  death.  And  even  in 
that  lowest  pit  there  is  a  lower  pit  of  putrefaction  and 
decay,  opening  one  beneath  another  into  that  abyss 
from  which  reason  and  imagination  shi-ink  with  equal 
horror.  Yes,  the  first  is  to  the  second  death  as  a 
mere  point  of  time  to  all  eternity.  The  soul  that  dies 
once,  dies  forever,  nay  is  forever  dying ;  not  as  in  the 
first  death  with  an  agony  of  moments  or  of  hours  in 
its  duration,  but  with  a  throe  of  anguish  which  shall 
blend  with  all  the  dying  soul's  sensations  through 
eternity.  And  oh,  what  an  eternity  !  each  thought  a 
pang,  and  every  respiration  a  mere  dying  gasp !  This 
is  the  second  death :  and  will  you  say  that  spirit- 
ual death,  which  tends  to  this,  is  not  a  state  of 
danger  ? 

If  it  be  true  that  our  natural  state  is  one  of  dark- 
ness, sleep,  death,  guilt,  and  danger,  no  one  who 
really  believes  it  to  be  so,  can  fail  to  be  aroused  to 
the  necessity  of  doing  something  to  obtain  deliverance. 
The  real  ground  of  men's  indiflerence  to  this  matter 
is  their  unbelief.  They  do  not  really  believe  what 
they  are  told  as  to  their  state  by  nature.  Where  this 
faith  really  exists,  it  shows  itself  in  anxious  fears,  if 
not  in  active  efforts.  And  the  soul's  first  impulse  is, 
to  break  the  spell  which  binds  it,  by  its  own  strength. 
It  resolves  that  the  darkness  shall  be  light,  that  the 
sleep  of  sin  shall  be  disturbed,  and  that  there  shall  be 
a  resurrection  from  the  death  of  sin ;  its  guilt  shall  be 


EPHESIANS  5,  14.  21 

atoned  for,  and  its  dangers  all  escaped.  Such  resolu- 
tions always  have  the  same  result — a  total  failure  in 
the  object  aimed  at,  and  an  aggravation  of  the  evils 
to  be  remedied.  To  save  you  from  the  pain  of  a 
severe  disappointment,  let  me  remind  you,  that  ac- 
cording to  our  text,  the  state  of  man  by  nature  is  not 
only  one  of  darkness,  and  sleeji,  and  death,  and  guilt, 
and  danger,  but  of  helplessness.  1  say,  according  to 
the  text,  for  although  this  doctrine  is  not  taught  ex- 
plicitly, I  read  it  in  the  promise  added  to  the  exhorta- 
tion, "  Christ  shall  give  thee  light."  It  might,  indeed, 
at  first  sight,  seem,  as  if  our  compliance  with  the  ex- 
hortation were  a  condition  of  the  promise  which  is 
added.  And  so  indeed  it  is,  but  like  other  conditions 
in  the  system  of  free  grace,  it  is  dependent  upon  that 
which  seems  dependent  upon  it.  Repentance  and 
faith  are  conditions  of  salvation ;  but  the  author  of 
our  salvation  is  the  giver  of  repentance,  the  author 
and  finisher  of  our  faith.  It  seems  as  if  God,  in  divine 
condescension  to  the  feelings  of  poor  sinners,  had 
thought  fit  to  clothe  his  own  gratuitous  bestowments 
in  the  guise  of  acts  to  be  performed  by  us.  He  for- 
gives us  freely  if  we  repent  and  believe,  but  we  can 
just  as  well  make  expiation  for  our  sins,  as  repent  and 
believe  without  divine  assistance.  It  is  as  if  a  father 
should  offer  to  forgive  his  child's  offence,  on  condition 
that  he  pay  a  certain  sum,  and  should  then  produce 
"the  sum  required  from  his  own  purse.  "When  the 
text  says,  therefore,  "  Awake  thou  that  sleepest,  and 
arise  from  the  dead,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light," 
the  analogy  of  gospel  truth  constrains  us  to  believe, 
that  so  the  light  which  is  promised  in  the  last  clause 


22  SERMONS. 

is  the  means,  the  only  means,  by  which  the  exhorta- 
tion can  be  possibly  complied  with. 

Nor  is  it  only  from  the  text  that  this  appears.  It 
results  from  the  very  nature  of  the  state  in  question. 
"Would  it  not  have  been  a  bitter  irony  to  call  upon 
the  Egyptians  to  strike  light  out  of  the  palpable  ob- 
scurity in  which  they  were  involved  ?  Would  it  not 
have  been  worse  than  irony  to  wait  till  Lazarus  should 
raise  himself?  Above  all,  would  you  tantalize  the 
breaker  of  God's  holy  law  by  promises  of  pardon,  on 
condition  of  his  perfect  obedience  for  the  future,  and 
satisfactory  atonement  for  the  past?  Does  he  not 
know  that  every  effort  for  the  expiation  of  his  guilt 
adds  something  to  its  depth  and  its  enormity?  That 
having  his  face  naturally  turned  from  God,  the  fur- 
ther he  proceeds,  the  more  remote  he  is  from  God, 
and  every  impulse  which  he  feels,  instead  of  bringing 
his  soul  nearer,  drives  it  further  from  the  centre  of 
perfection  ?  What  a  condition !  If  it  were  possible 
to  sit  still  and  do  nothing,  we  should  surely  perish 
through  our  own  neglect.  And  if  we  exercise  our 
strength,  we  only  stir  up  a  centrifugal  impetus  which 
drives  us  to  perdition !  Surely  this  is  helplessness  in 
the  highest  sense.  And  I  appeal  to  any  one  who  ever 
was  awakened  to  a  sense  of  sin  and  the  desire  of  sal- 
vation, whether  his  own  heart  does  not  respond  to  my 
description.  If  it  does,  we  have  experimental  con- 
firmation of  the  scriptural  doctrine,  that  our  state  by 
nature  is  not  only  miserable,  dangerous,  and  guilty, 
but  pre-eminently  helpless. 

But  will  not  this  doctrine  tend  to  paralyze  the 
efforts  of  the  sinner  for  salvation  ?    And  what  then  ? 


1 


EPHESIANS  5,  14.  23 

The  more  completely  his  self-righteous  strength  is 
paralyzed,  the  better.  No  man  can  trust  God  and 
himself  at  once.  Your  self-reliance  must  be  destroyed, 
or  it  will  destroy  you.  But  if,  by  a  paralysis  of  effort, 
be  intended  a  stagnation  of  feeling,  and  indifference 
to  danger,  I  reply  that  this  doctrine  has  no  tendency 
to  breed  it.  Suppose  it  should  be  suddenly  announced 
to  this  assembly  that  a  deadly  malady  had  just  ap- 
peared, and  had  begun  to  sweep  oft'  thousands  in  its 
coui-se  ;  and  that  the  only  possibility  of  safety  de- 
pended on  the  use  of  a  specific  remedy,  simple  and 
easy  in  its  application,  and  already  within  the  reach 
of  every  individual,  who  had  nothing  to  do  at  any 
moment  but  to  use  it,  and  infallibly  secure  himself 
against  infection.  And  suppose  that,  while  your 
minds  were  resting  on  this  last  assurance,  it  should  be 
authoritatively  contradicted,  and  the  fact  announced, 
with  evidence  not  to  be  gainsaid,  that  this  specific, 
simple  and  infallibly  successful,  was  beyond  the  reach 
of  every  person  present,  and  could  only  be  applied 
by  a  superior  power.  I  put  it  to  yourselves,  which  of 
these  statements  would  produce  security,  and  which 
alarm  ?  "VVliich  would  lead  you  to  fold  your  hands  in 
indolent  indifference,  and  which  would  rouse  you  to 
an  agonizing  struggle  for  the  means  of  safety  ?  I 
speak  as  unto  wise  men  :  judge  ye  what  I  say.  Oh, 
my  friends,  if  there  is  any  cure  for  spiritual  sloth  and 
false  security,  it  is  a  heartfelt  faith  in  the  necessity  of 
superhuman  help.  The  man  who  makes  his  helpless- 
ness a  pretext  for  continuance  in  sin,  whatever  he 
may  say,  does  not  really  believe  that  he  is  helpless. 
No  man  believes  it  till  he  knows  it  by  experience. 


24-  SERMONS. 

The  firmest  believers  in  man's  plenary  ability,  are 
men  whose  hearts  are  hard  through  the  deceitfulness 
of  sin.  Those,  on  the  contrary,  who  have  been  taught 
to  fathom  the  abyss  of  their  own  hearts,  and  who 
know  what  it  is  to  have  leaned  upon  the  reed  of  their 
own  strength  until  it  pierced  them,  will  be  forward  to 
acknowledge  that  our  state  of  nature  is  not  only  one 
of  darkness,  sleep,  death,  guilt,  and  danger,  but  of 
utter  helplessness. 

Here  we  may  pause  in  our  enumeration.  Each 
item  in  the  catalogue  has  made  our  state  by  nature 
more  degraded  and  alarming,  and  we  now  have 
reached  a  point,  beyond  which  we  need  not,  and  in- 
deed cannot  advance.  Darkness  is  bad  enough,  but 
its  perils  may  be  shunned  by  men  awake.  But  we 
are  also  asleep ;  and  sleep,  though  it  suspends  our 
powers,  is  a  transient  state.  But  alas!  our  sleep  is 
the  sleep  of  death.  Yet  even  in  death  some  men  take 
pleasure,  as  a  state  admitting  of  no  further  change. 
But  our  death  is  progressive,  and  therefore  far  more 
dangerous  than  any  state  in  life.  Yet  even  here  we 
might  take  refuge  in  the  consciousness  of  our  own 
innocence,  and  draw  a  kind  of  desperate  consolation 
from  the  proud  thought  that  we  have  not  brought  this 
ruin  on  ourselves.  But  even  this  poor  consolation  is 
snatched  from  us.  We  are  guilty!  we  are  guilty! 
This  puts  an  end  to  all  self-pleading,  and  impels  us  to 
escape  from  a  condition  which  is  equally  miserable, 
dangerous,  and  guilty.  But  even  here  we  are  en- 
countered by  a  last  conviction.  We  are  helpless ! 
•we  are  helpless  !  This  is  the  death-blow  to  our  hopes, 
and  we  despair.     Yes,  despair  may  be  described  as 


EPHESIANS  5,  14.  25 

the  conclusion  to  which  we  are  condnctecl  by  the  text. 
Not  absohite  despair,  but  that  despair  which  is  essen- 
tial to  salvation.  For  there  is  salvation,  even  from 
this  lowest  depth  to  which  we  have  descended.  The 
text  teaches  us  not  only  what  our  state  by  nature  is, 
but  how  it  may  be  changed.  Our  bane  and  antidote 
are  both  before  us.  And  what  is  this  great  remedy  ? 
Hear  the  answer  of  the  text :  "  Awake  thou  that 
sleepest,  and  arise  from  the  dead,  and  Christ  shall 
give  thee  light."  Light,  light  is  the  specific  for  our 
case.  And  as  light  is  the  opposite  of  darkness,  the 
description  before  given  of  our  spiritual  darkness, 
will  teach  us  what  is  signified  by  spiritual  light,  and 
what  are  its  effects  upon  the  soul. 

In  the  first  place,  it  dispels  that  blindness  of  the 
heart  and  the  affections,  which  disables  us  from  seeing 
the  true  qualities  of  spiritual  objects.  That  which 
before  seemed  repulsive,  becomes  lovely :  that  which 
was  mean,  is  glorious.  That  which  was  j^leasing  or 
indifferent,  is  now  seen  to  be  loathsome.  The  beauty 
of  holiness  and  the  ugliness  of  sin,  are  now  revealed 
in  their  true  colours.  Moral  and  spiritual  objects 
which  before  were  undefined  and  indistinct,  are  now 
seen  clearly,  and  invested  with  their  true  proportions. 
Things  which,  tlirough  tlie  mist  of  sin,  were  magni- 
fied, distorted,  and  confused,  fall  at  once  into  their 
natural  position  and  their  real  size.  Nor  is  this  all. 
The  light  which  beams  upon  ns,  not  only  rectifies  our 
views  of  what  we  saw  before,  but  shows  us  what  we 
never  saw.  We  are  like  the  prophet's  servant,  who 
imagined  that  his  master  and  himself  were  left  alone, 
until  his  eyes  were  opened,  and  he  saw  the  mountain 

VOL.  II. — 2 


26  SERMONS. 

to  be  filled  witli  chariots,  and  horses  of  fire.  Have 
you  ever  read,  or  heard,  of  the  effect  produced  upon 
the  feelings  by  the  sudden  restoration  of  the  sight  ? 
Those  objects  which  to  us  are  too  familiar  to  affect 
us,  are  to  the  blind  man  full  of  glory.  In  the  mo- 
ment of  his  restoration,  a  whole  lifetime  of  enjoyment 
seems  to  be  concentrated.  But  what  are  these  sensa- 
tions to  the  feelings  of  the  soul  when  the  scales  fall 
from  its  eyes,  and  the  curtain  is  withdrawn  from  the 
spiritual  world,  and  the  intense  light  of  divine 
illumination,  with  gradual  dawn,  or  sudden  flash, 
lights  up  the  amphitheatre  by  which  we  are  sur- 
rounded, and  shows  us  that,  instead  of  standing  by 
ourselves  in  a  contracted  circle,  we  are  a  spectacle  to 
angels  and  to  devils,  and  spectators  of  a  universe ! 

Light,  then,  is  the  remedy  ;  but  how  shall  we  ob- 
tain it  ?  We  are  still  driven  back  upon  our  helpless- 
ness. We  see  that  light  we  must  have,  but  we  see 
not  how  it  can  be  kindled  by  us.  Here  the  text 
teaches  us  another  lesson.  It  teaches  us  not  only 
that  we  must  have  light,  but  that  it  must  be  given  to 
us.  Christ  shall  give  thee  light.  If  it  comes  at  all 
it  comes  as  a  free  gift.  This  harmonizes  fully  with 
the  sense  of  our  helplessness,  and  indeed  confirms  it. 
Think  not  that  I  lay  too  much  stress  upon  this  inci- 
dental form  of  speech.  This  circumstance  I  hold  to 
be  essential  to  the  doctrine.  It  matters  not  how  sen- 
sible we  may  be  of  the  need  of  light,  nor  how  in- 
tensely we  may  long  for  it,  unless  we  know  that  it 
can  only  come  to  us  by  being  given.  Thousands  come 
fihort  of  everlasting  life,  because  they  trust  for  light 
in  sparks  of  their  own  kindling.     The  light  which  we 


EPHES.ANS  5,  14.  2'? 

need,  is  not  from  any  earthly  luminary.  It  is  not 
from  any  twinkling  star,  revolving  planet,  or  erratic 
comet.  It  is  from  the  sun,  the  sun  of  righteousness. 
And  where  is  he  ?  In  what  part  of  the  firmament  is 
his  tabernacle  set  ? 

This  is  the  last  question  answered  by  the  text.  It 
not  only  shows  us  that  we  must  have  light,  and  that 
this  light  must  be  given  to  us  by  another,  but  it  shows 
us  who  can  give  it — who  alone  can  give  it.  "  Awake 
thou  that  sleei:)est,  and  arise  from  the  dead,  and  Christ 
shall  give  thee  light."  Brethren,  from  whatever  point 
you  set  out  when  you  trace  the  gospel  method  of  sal- 
vation, if  you  follow  the  Scriptures,  you  will  always 
come  to  Christ.  And  that  way  of  salvation  which 
conducts  to  any  other  point,  is  not  the  way  for  us. 
Christ  is  the  end  of  the  law  for  righteousness  to  every 
one  that  believeth.  This  w^orld,  to  the  believer,  is  a 
dark,  perplexing  labyrinth,  and  in  its  mazes  he  would 
lose  himself  Ibrever,  were  it  not  that  ever  and  anon, 
at  certain  turnings  in  the  crooked  path,  he  gets  a 
glimpse  of  Calvary.  These  glimpses  may  be  transi- 
tory, but  they  feed  his  hopes,  and  often  unexpectedly 
return  to  cheer  his  drooping  spirits.  Sometimes  he 
is  ready  to  desj^air  of  his  escape,  and  to  lie  down  in 
the  darkness  of  the  labyrinth  and  die.  But  as  he 
forms  the  resolution,  an  unlooked-for  turn  presents  a 
distant  prospect,  and  beyond  all  other  objects  and 
above  them,  he  discerns  the  cross  and  Christ  upon  it. 
Look  to  Christ,  then !  look  to  him  for  light  to  dissi- 
pate your  darkness — to  aroijse  you  from  your  sleep, 
and  to  raise  you  from  the  dead ;  for  though  these 
figures  are  not  carried  out  by  the  apostle,  he  obviously 


28  SERMONS. 

means  that  tlie  light  here  promised  .s  to  be  a  cure, 
not  only  for  our  darkness,  but  our  sleep  and  death. 
And,  indeed,  the  perception  and  enjoyment  of  light, 
implies  that  we  are  living  and  awake.  If,  then,  you 
would  have  this  sovereign  remedy  for  all  your  evils, 
look  to  Christ !  Perhaps  you  have  already  looked 
unto  him  and  been  lightened.  Oh,  then,  look  on, 
look  always ;  for  it  is  not  enough  to  have  looked  once. 
The  believer's  face  must  be  fixed  continually  on  this 
source  of  light,  and  fastened  there  forever.  Have  you 
not  had  your  hours  of  darkness,  nay,  your  days, 
weeks,  months  and  years  of  darkness,  even  since  you 
obtained  light  from  Christ  ?  Ah,  it  was  when  you 
turned  away  your  steadfast  gaze  from  the  pillar  of 
fire  which  went  before  you,  that  it  became  to  you  a 
pillar  of  cloud.  To  all  who  are  now  in  darkness,  I 
hold  up  the  only  source  of  spiritual  light ;  and  in  the 
ears  of  every  one  slumbering  at  ease  within  the 
Church  of  God,  I  cry  aloud,  "  Awake  thou  that  sleep- 
est,  and  arise  from  the  dead,  and  Christ  shall  give 
thee  light ! " 

But  its  exhortation  is  not  only  or  chiefly  to  the  be- 
liever who  is  wrapped  in  darkness.  Its  voice  is  still 
louder  to  the  soul  asleep  in  sin,  dead  in  trespasses  and 
sins,  "Awake  thou  that  sleepest,  and  arise  from  the 
dead,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light !  "  And  oh,  re- 
member that  you  cannot  shut  your  eyes  upon  this 
light  without  an  aggravation  of  your  future  wretched- 
ness— without  adding  a  deeper  shade  of  blackness 
to  the  darkness  of  your  grave.  It  is  said,  that 
in  some  of  the  great  light-houses  built  on  rocks  lying 
mostly  under  Avater,  the   brightness  of  the  lantern 


EPHESIAXS  5,  14.  29 

attracts  multitudes  of  sea-birds,  wliich  dart  headlong 
towards  it,  like  the  moth  into  the  candle,  and  are 
violently  dashed  back  dead  into  the  sea.  And  oh,  is 
it  not  a  fearful  thought  that  the  salvation  of  the  gos- 
pel, that  the  cross  of  Christ  itself,  may  be  a  living, 
yet  not  a  saving  sight — that  souls  may  be  attracted 
by  it  only  to  perdition  ?  But  that  same  radiant  lan- 
tern which  sheds  its  saving  beams  upon  the  souls  of 
the  elect,  shines  no  less  brightly  upon  thqge  that 
perish.  But,  alas !  instead  of  using  its  divine  light  to 
escape  the  wrath  to  come,  they  only  dash  against  it 
with  insane  hostility,  and  fall  back  stunned  into  the 
dark  abyss  which  washes  its  foundations.  God  forbid 
tliat  you  or  I  should  die  so  terrible  a  death,  and  be 
lighted  to  perdition  by  that  very  blaze  which  might 
have  guided  us  to  glory. 


n. 


Mark  14,  41. — Sleep  on  now,  and  take  your  rest:  it  is  enough,  the 
hour  is  come ;  behold,  the  Son  of  Man  is  betrayed  into  the  hands  of 
sinners. 

The  Bible  is  full  of  exhortations  to  awake  ;  but  a 
command  to  sleep  is  rare  and  paradoxical ;  so  much 
so,  that  many  interpreters  have  chosen  to  regard  this 
sentence  as  a  question :  Do  you  still  sleep,  and  take 
your  rest  ?  you  have  slept  enough :  the  hour  is  come, 
behold,  the  Son  of  Man  is  betrayed  into  the  hands  of 
sinners.  This  construction  of  the  passage,  though  it 
yields  a  good  sense,  is  less  consistent  with  the  form  of 
the  original  than  the  common  version,  which  is  sup- 
ported by  a  great  majority  of  the  ablest  critics. 
Viewing  it  therefore  as  an  exhortation,  or  at  least  a 
permission,  I  repeat  that  it  is  something  rare  and  par- 
adoxical. And  this  first  impression  is  increased  by 
the  reason  which  is  given  for  the  exhortation.  Had 
the  language  been,  sleep  on,  and  take  your  rest,  my 
hour  is  not  yet  come,  it  would  have  been  at  once  in- 
telligible :  but  it  is,  sleep  on  and  take  your  rest,  the 
hour  is  come ;  and  as  if  to  leave  no  doubt  i:hat  "  the 
hour  "  was  that  mysterious  hour  of  darkness,  towards 
which  the  voice  of  prophecy  and  the  finger  of  provi- 


J 


MARK  14,  li.  31 

dence  liad  been  so  long  pointing  with  incessant  pre- 
monition, "  behold,  the  Son  of  Man  is  betrayed  into 
the  hands  of  sinners."  "Was  there  ever  a  command  so 
strange,  supported  by  a  reason  so  much  stranger?  I 
call  your  attention  to  this  singularity,  because  we  are 
too  apt  to  overlook  these  striking  points  in  the  famil- 
iar Scriptures,  and  because  I  see  wrapped  up  in  these 
remarkable  expressions,  a  rich  volume  of  instruction 
to  myself  and  to  my  hearers.  To  um-oU  it,  and  deci- 
pher at  least  some  of  its  most  solemn  lessons,  is  my 
present  purpose. 

From  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  however,  it  is 
not  by  metaphysical  or  logical  analysis  that  this  leaf 
in  the  book  of  life  is  to  be  rendered  legible.  So  far 
from  it,  that  I  design  to  call  in  the  aid  of  your  imag- 
inations in  pursuing  my  design.  I  know  that  the 
very  name  of  this  unruly  power  is  cast  out  as  evil  by 
many  sincere  Christians.  But  I  also  know  that  al- 
most every  page  of  Scripture  calls  for  its  due  exercise : 
that  neither  prophecies  nor  parables  can  do  their  of- 
fice without  its  assistance  ;  that  even  tliose  who  dread 
it  as  an  instrument  of  evil,  habitually  use  it  as  an  in- 
strument of  good  ;  and  that  mucli  of  our  indiflference 
to  the  word  of  God  arisesfromthe  want  of  a  chastened 
imagination  giving  colour  and  vitality  to  what  we 
read.  But  while  I  thus  call  in  imagination  to  my  aid, 
it  is  with  no  romantic  or  theatrical  design.  It  is  not 
to  invent  unreal  forms,  but  to  call  up  before  us  those 
already  in  existence.  The  materials  upon  which  she 
is  to  work  arc  simple  facts  recorded  in  God's  word, 
and  rendered  still  more  tangible  and  real,  to  our  ap- 
prehension, by  the  minutiae  of  time  and  place. 


32  SERMONS. 

On  the  east  side  of  Jerusalem,  between  tlie  city 
and  the  Mount  of  Olives,  flows  a  stream  called  Kc- 
dron.  Beyond  this,  at  the  very  foot  of  Olivet,  there 
is  a  small  enclosure,  with  a  low  stone  wall,  containing 
a  very  few  ancient  olive-trees,  the  offspring  and  suc- 
cessors of  an  elder  race.  This  place  is  now  called 
Jesmaniah,  but  according  to  a  tradition  of  the  coun- 
try, which  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  to  discredit, 
it  was  called,  in  ancient  times,  Gethsemane.  Into 
this  enclosure,  on  a  Thursday  night,  there  entered 
four  men  from  the  Mount  of  Olives.  I  cannot  de- 
scribe their  persons,  but  I  know  their  countenances 
must  have  been  dejected,  for  their  hearts  were  full  of 
sorrow.  And  on  the  heart  of  one  among  the  number 
there  rested,  at  that  hour,  a  load  of  grief,  compared 
with  which  the  aggi'egated  sorrows  of  the  human 
family,  before  and  since,  are  nothing.  Yes,  if  we 
could  collect  the  tears  of  widowed  wives,  and  child- 
less mothers,  and  forsaken  orphans,  the  cries  of  every 
battle-field,  the  groans  of  every  hospital,  the  shrieks 
of  every  torture-room,  the  unheard  sobs  which  have 
been  stifled  in  the  prison  house,  and  all  those  deeper 
agonies  which  never  find  expression — they  would  bo 
as  nothing  to  the  single  I3ang  which  wrung  a  single 
heart,  upon  that  awful  night. 

Here,  if  we  chose,  we  might  indulge  imagination, 
without  any  fear  that  our  conceptions  would  transcend 
the  truth,  or  that  the  longest  line  that  we  could  heave 
would  ever  reach  the  bottom  of  that  deep,  deep  sea* 
of  sori'ow.  But  such  indulgence  would  be  no  less 
vain  than  painful.  Let  us  rather  in  imagination  fol- 
low the  four  men,  till  their  forms   are   almost  lost 


MAKK  14,  41.  33 

among  the  olive-trees.  Three  of  them  sit  upon  the 
ground,  while  the  fourth  passes  on  into  a  deeper 
shade  and  a  remoter  solitude.  Do  you  know  him, 
Christian  brethren  ?  Oh,  I  believe  that  if  that  blessed 
face  should  now  appear  among  us,  as  it  then  looked 
in  Gethsemane,  we  all  should  know  it.  I  am  aware 
that  many  wild  imaginations  have  been  cherished,^ 
and  that  painters  and  poets  have  exhausted  their  in- 
vention in  conjectural  embellishments.  But  if  that 
living  countenance  could  now  be  set  before  us,  I  be- 
lieve that  in  its  aspect  of  benignant  sadness,  in  the 
lines  of  sinless  sorrow  w-hich  had  marred  its  surface, 
we  could  read  the  name  of  its  possessor  no  less  clearly 
than  in  Pilate's  superscription  on  the  cross.  It  was 
the  Son  of  Man.  His  companions  were  the  sons  of 
men,  but  he  the  Son  of  Man.  He  sustained  a  rela- 
tion to  humanity  itself,  for  in  its  coarse  integuments 
his  deity  was  shrouded.  The  Son  of  God,  by  a  vol- 
untary act,  became  the  Son  of  Man,  and  from  the 
bosom  of  the  Father,  where  he  dwelt  before  the  world 
was,  took  up  his  abode  in  the  bosom  of  our  fallen  and 
unhappy  race.  We  cannot  pierce  the  mystery  of  that 
transition,  nor  explain  how  the  divinity  was  held  in 
abeyance,  that  humanity  might  exercise  its  finite 
powers  ;  but  we  know  that  from  the  moment  of  that 
union,  there  arose  an  identity  of  interest  and  feeling 
which  shall  never  end ;  that  no  sooner  had  the  Son  of 
God  become  the  Son  of  Man,  than  there  began  to 
gush,  within  his  human  heart,  a  well-spring  of  sym- 
pathy which  angels  cannot  know ;  that  the  pains  of 
his  infancy  were  pains  of  human  infirmity,  that  the 
tears  of  his  maturity  were  drops  of  human  sorrow, 

VOL.  II. — 2* 


34  SERMONS. 

that  the  sins  for  -which  he  suffered  were  the  sins  of 
humankind,  that  he  stood  in  our  place  not  only  as  our 
sacrifice,  but  also  as  our  sympathetic  fellow  man,  not 
only  on  the  cross,  but  in  the  lingering  crucifixion  of 
a  life  of  sorrow,  from  the  stable  in  Bethlehem,  where 
we  find  him  first,  to  the  olives  of  Gethsemane,  where 
we  see  him  now. 

And  in  what  position  ?  Prostrate  on  the  ground. 
See  that  blessed  brow  in  contact  with  the  cold  damp 
earth.  See  the  convulsive  agitation  of  the  frame ; 
and  though  the  grief,  which  it  betokens,  lies  too  deep 
for  tears,  see  the  sweat,  like  drops  of  blood,  stream- 
ing out  of  every  pore.  Sons  and  daughters  of  men,  it 
is  the  Son  of  Man  ;  it  is  the  burden  of  humanity  that 
crushes  his  imspotted  heart ;  it  is  the  heart's  blood  of 
our  race  that  oozes  from  him  ;  it  is  the  Son  of  Man  in 
anguish  for  mankind.  I  need  not  ask  you  to  recall 
the  words  he  uttered ;  the  vocal  anguish  of  a  broken 
heart ;  but  I  beseech  you  to  imagine  that  you  see 
him  rising,  not  refreshed,  as  we  might  be,  by  such  a 
burst  of  feeling,  but,  with  that  load  upon  his  heart 
still  undiminished,  see  hun  come  back  to  his  friends, 
whom  he  had  left,  as  if  for  sympathy.  And  does  he 
find  them  weeping  ?  or  engaged  in  sad  discourse,  or 
musing  in  sad  silence  ?  Ko,  he  finds  them  sleeping ! 
How  does  he  treat  neglect  so  shameful  ?  He  arouses 
them,  but  gently,  with  this  mild  expostulation  : 
"  What,  could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ? " 
He  goes  again :  he  falls  again  upon  the  ground :  he 
repeats  that  prayer  which  we  ought  never  to  repeat 
without  profound  emotion :  he  returns  to  his  com- 
panions, and  again  they  are  asleep.     He  utters  no  se- 


MARK  14,  41.  35 

vei'c  rebuke,  nor  even  a  complaint,  except  hj  asking 
as  before,  "  Could  je  not  watcli  witli  me  one  hour  ?  " 
He  goes  again,  and  for  the  last  time,  to  his  place  of 
prayer :  he  prays  again :  and  with  that  prayer  un- 
answered, his  distress  unmitigated,  he  comes  back  to 
his  friends,  and  they  are  sleeping !  Does  he  spurn 
them?  Does  he  rouse  them  by  contemptuous  re- 
proof? Or  does  he  leave  them  in  anger  to  their  own 
ignoble  slumbers  ?     He  does  neither. 

Tlie  deportment  of  the  Son  of  Man,  on  that  oc- 
casion, has  a  transcendent,  a  divine  sublimity,  which 
no  imagination  could  invent  or  heighten.  'No  exhi- 
bition of  Almighty  wrath,  however  grand,  though  ex- 
ecuted by  a  legion  of  angels  armed  with  lightning, 
tempest,  and  the  winds  of  heaven,  could  have  invested 
him  with  such  a  glory,  as  the  air  of  serene  sorrow 
with  which  he  at  once  rebukes,  forgives,  and  warns 
them  of  their  danger.  "  Sleep  on  now,  and  take  your 
rest :  it  is  enough,  the  hour  is  come ;  behold,  the  Son 
of  Man  is  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners."  And 
as  he  speaks,  the  glare  of  torch-light  is  perceived 
among  the  olive-trees,  and  the  betrayer  comes.  You 
know  what  follows  :  you  know  what  went  before  :  I 
need  neither  ask  nor  tell  you  who  the  three  men  were. 
I  need  not  tell  you  that  among  the  number  was  the 
same  bold  spirit  who,  a  little  while  before,  had  almost 
sworn,  that  though  all  men  should  forsake  him,  he 
would  follow  him  to  death,  and  who,  a  little  after, 
actually  swore  that  he  had  never  known  the  man.  I 
need  not  tell  you,  that  another  of  the  number  was  the 
man  who  leaned  upon  his  Master's  bosom,  and  was 
called  his  friend.     You  know  the  history,  and  I  shall 


36  SERMONS. 

leave  it  to  your  private  meditation.  Do  not  neglect 
it.  This  is  surely  no  unworthy  tlienie  for  your  reflec- 
tions. I  am  afraid  that  it  is  not  a  common  one  I 
am  afraid  that  even  Christians  may  grow  weary  of 
their  Saviour's  passion.  I  am  afraid  that  there  are 
men,  and  Christian  men,  who  can  allow  themselves 
the  pitiable  luxury  of  weeping  over  fiction,  but  who 
have  no  tears  to  shed  with  Jesus  in  Gethsemane. 
They  regard  it  as  a  waste  of  time  to  dwell  upon  the 
circumstantial  statements  of  the  gospel,  which  cannot 
be  reduced  to  abstract,  systematic  form.  Or,  at  best, 
they  are  contented  with  a  cold,  dry  knowledge  of  the 
facts  related.  They  do  not  regard  it  as  a  matter 
of  feeling  :  they  would  be  ashamed  to  do  so.  I 
speak  the  experience  of  some  who  hear  me.  But 
ought  this  so  to  be  ?  "We  must  go  back  to  the  simple 
faith  and  feelings  of  our  childhood.  "We  must,  at 
least  in  this  respect,  become  little  children.  Those 
same  imaginations,  which  have  so  often  been  the 
ministers  of  sin,  must  be  used  for  better  purposes. 
By  their  aid  we  must  stand  on  Olivet  and  Geth- 
semane, mix  with  the  rabble  which  surrounds  the 
master,  hear  the  deep  imprecation  of  the  Koman  sol- 
dier, and  the  louder  curses  of  the  Jewish  mob  ;  follow 
to  the  house  of  the  High  Priest  and  the  Pretorium  ; 
look  at  the  false  Procurator  as  he  dooms  the  innocent, 
and  vainly  tries  to  wash  the  blood  away  with  water. 
But  I  need  not  go  further. 

Fix  your  thoughts,  I  pray  you,  on  these  scenes  as 
real  scenes,  and  try  to  see  and  hear  as  if  the  sights 
and  sounds  were  present  to  your  senses.  Having  so 
done,  let  us  gather  from  this  night  scene  in  Geth- 


MARK  14,  41.  37 

semane  the  lessons  wliicli  it  teaclies  for  onr  own  in- 
struction. That  it  teaclies  such  lessons  is  not  the  less 
true,  because  the  external  circumstances  of  the  case 
i-ecorded  are  entirely  different  from  our  own.  That 
which  renders  the  narratives  of  Holy  AVrit  instruc- 
tive, is  not  identity  of  outward  situation,  but  analogy 
of  motive  and  of  moral  relations.  The  same  guilt 
may  be  incurred  by  us  as  by  the  twelve  apostles,  and 
in  these  ends  of  the  earth  as  well  as  in  Jerusalem. 
ISTeither  sloth  nor  treachery  derives  its  moral  quality 
from  time  or  place.  In  further  illustration  of  this 
statement,  and  in  application  of  the  text,  let  me  call 
your  attention  to  a  few  thoughts  which  it  has  sug- 
gested. 

I.  The  first  is,  that  the  Son  of  Man  may  even  now 
be  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners.  Men  are  apt 
to  imagine,  that  had  they  lived  in  the  time  of  Christ, 
they  would  not  thus  and  thus  have  treated  him.  This 
is,  for  the  most  part,  mere  illusion.  They  who  hate 
Christ  now,  would  have  hated  him  then.  Tliey  who 
despise  him  unseen,  would  have  spurned  him  to  his 
face.  They  who  maltreat  his  members,  would  have 
persecuted  him.  Tliis  is  a  test  proposed  by  Christ 
himself.  That  wliich  is  done  to  the  humblest  of  his 
followers,  as  such,  is  done  to  him.  Tlie  interests  of 
Christ's  churcli,  arc  the  interests  of  Christ.  Tlie  en- 
emies of  Christ's  church,  are  the  enemies  of  Christ. 
Even  in  our  own  day  Christ  may  be  betrayed.  He 
may  be  betrayed  by  his  own  disciples.  He  may  be 
betrayed  with  a  kiss.  For  such  treason  the  ungodly 
world  is  waiting.  There  are  always  sinners  to  receive 
him  at  the  traitor's  hands  and  pay  the  traitor's  Avages. 


38  SERMONS. 

He  can  no  longer  be  betrayed  by  the  delivery  of  liia 
person  into  hostile  hands.  But  the  disposition  to  sur 
render  him  to  enemies  may  still  exist :  a  disposition 
to  procure  the  favour  of  the  world  at  his  expense.  In 
short,  the  same  state  of  feeling  may  now  operate  in 
various  directions,  and  in  various  forms,  which,  if  the 
Saviour  were  now  present  upon  earth,  would  cause 
him  to  be  first  forsaken,  then  betrayed. 

In  this  sense,  for  example,  it  may  well  be  said 
that  the  Son  of  Man  is  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sin- 
nei'S,  when  the  truth  respecting  him  is  given  up  to 
errorists,  or  cavillers,  or  infidels  ;  when  his  divinity  is 
called  in  question ;  when  his  eternal  Sonship  is  de- 
graded or  denied  ;  when  the  sinless  perfection  of  his 
human  nature  is  tainted  by  the  breath  of  dubious 
speculation ;  when  his  atonement  is  disfigured  and 
perverted ;  when  the  value  of  his  cross  and  bloody 
passion  is  depreciated  ;  when  his  place  in  the  system 
of  free  grace  is  taken  from  him  and  bestowed  on  some- 
thing else  ;  when  the  purchase  of  his  agonies  is  made 
to  be  the  purchase  of  our  own  good  works ;  when 
faith  in  him,  as  a  means  of  salvation,  is  exchanged  for 
mere  submission  to  the  government  of  God ;  when 
his  present  existence,  as  a  man,  is  forgotten ;  when 
his  personal  presence,  as  a  God,  is  overlooked ;  when 
his  exaltation  and  his  future  coming  are  lost  sight  of 
by  his  people.  By  conceding  so  m.uch  to  the  unbe- 
liever, we  betray  the  Saviour  to  him  to  be  bufieted 
and  spit  upon. 

To  mention  only  one  other  example :  Christ  is 
betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners,  when  his  gospel 
is   perverted,  his    example    dishonoured,   and    him- 


MARK  14,  41.  39 

Belt'  represented  as  the  minister  of  sin.  The  honour 
of  the  Savionr  is  in  some  sense  committed  to  the  care 
of  his  disciples  ;  and  this  sacred  trust  is  shamefully 
betrayed,  when  they  give  the  world  occasion,  in  de 
spising  them,  to  treat  their  master  with  contempt 
O  Christian  !  have  you  ever  thought,  that  every 
inconsistent  and  unworthy  act  of  yours  is  one  step 
towards  betraying  Him  whom  you  profess  to  love  ? 
And  if,  while  you  thus  habitually  act,  you  hold  fast 
your  profession,  it  is  only  adding  the  betrayer's  kiss  to 
the  betrayer's  perfidy.  My  first  remark,  then,  is  that 
even  now,  the  Son  of  Man  may  be  betrayed  into  the 
hands  of  sinners.  And  let  me  add,  that  there  are  times 
when  such  a  disposition  shows  itself  in  more  than  com- 
mon strength ;  when,  through  the  abounding  of  temp- 
tation and  iniquity,  the  faith  of  multitudes  is  sorely 
tried  ;  and  after  the  experiment  is  finished,  it  appears, 
that  many,  whose  profession  was  as  fair  as  that  of 
Judas,  have  like  Judas  gone  to  their  own  place,  and 
that  others  whose  pretensions  were  as  high  as  those 
of  Peter,  have  like  him  denied  their  Master,  and  then 
gone  out  and  wept  bitterly.  For  such  times,  when 
the  Saviour  or  his  cause  are  in  danger  from  betrayers, 
it  behoves  us  all,  my  friends,  to  stand  prepared. 

II.  Another  thought  which  I  suggest,  is,  that 
when  the  cause  of  Christ  is  about  to  be  betrayed  into 
the  hands  of  sinners,  his  disciples  arc  to  watch,  to 
watch  unto  prayer,  lest  they  enter  into  temptation. 
Tliis  is  incumbent  upon  all  disciples,  but  especially 
on  some.  And  among  those  there  is  many  a  bold, 
self-trusting  Peter,  and  many  a  Boanerges.  Those 
who  are  office-bearers  in  the  Church,  are  the  honoured 


40  SERMON  b. 

but  responsible  companions  of  tbeir  Master  in  tbe  day 
of  trial.  He  asks  not  for  the  exertion  of  tlieir  strength 
in  bis  behalf.  He  asks  not  for  their  sympathy ;  he 
asks  not  for  their  prayers  ;  but  he  does  demand  their 
vigilance.  When  he  looks  upon  the  purchase  of  his 
blood,  spoiled  and  ravaged  by  the  enemy ;  his  little 
flock  pursued  and  torn  by  wolves  ;  his  vineyard 
spoiled  and  trodden  by  wild  beasts  ;  the  great  Inter- 
cessor pours  out  his  own  cries  and  tears  before  the 
Father,  and  although  he  says  no  more,  "  My  soul  is  ex- 
ceeding sorrowful,  even  unto  death,"  he  does  say,  and  to 
you,  my  brethren,  "  Tarry  ye  here  and  watch  with  me." 
HI.  Another  thought,  and  that  a  melancholy  one, 
is,  that  when  Christ's  disciples  are  thus  left  to  watch, 
while  he  is  interceding  with  the  Father,  they  too  often 
fall  asleep.  Some,  in  the  touching  language  of  the 
gosj^el,  may  be  "  sleeping  for  sorrow."  But  oh,  how 
many  others  sleep  for  sloth  and  sheer  indifference. 
And  if  any  sleep  for  sorrow,  they  do  wrong.  For 
when  our  Saviour  found  his  chosen  friends  asleep 
upon  their  post,  he  aroused  them  and  reproached  them 
with  that  mild  expostulation,  "  Could  ye  not  watch 
with  me  one  hour  ? "  He  said,  indeed,  as  if  to  ex- 
tenuate their  guilt,  that  the  spirit  was  willing  though 
the  flesh  was  weak.  But  even  admitting  what  is 
commonly  supposed,  that  flesh  and  spirit  here  mean 
soul  and  body,  it  does  not  follow  that  their  slumber 
was  excusable.  Christ  would  not  repeatedly  have 
roused  them  from  an  innocent  and  necessary  slumber. 
Much  less  was  it  excusable,  if,  as  some  excellent  in- 
terpreters have  thought,  spirit  here  means  the  better 
principle,  the  new  heart,  and  flesh  the  remnant  of  in- 


I 


MARK  14,  41.  41 

dwelling  sin.  If  this  be  so,  it  was  hardness  of  heart 
and  spiritual  sloth  that  made  them  sleep  for  sorrow. 
Oh  my  brethren,  if  your  hearts  are  full  of  sorrow,  be- 
cause men  make  void  God's  law,  it  is  no  time  for  you 
to  sleep !  The  Church,  Christ's  weeping  bride,  and 
the  dying  souls  of  men,  are  at  your  pillow,  shrieking 
in  your  ears,  like  the  shipmaster  in  the  ears  of  Jonah : 
"  What  meanest  thou,  O  sleeper  ?  Arise,  call  upon 
thy  God,  if  so  be  that  God  will  think  upon  us,  that 
we  perish  not." 

lY.  But  alas  !  this  warning  voice  is  often  heard  in 
vain.  Amidst  a  world  lying  in  wickedness,  amidst 
the  untold  miseries  produced  by  sin,  amidst  the  dying 
agonies  of  unsaved  souls  as  they  go  down  to  their  per- 
dition, amidst  the  fierce  attacks  of  open  enemies  upon 
the  Son  of  Man,  and  the  devices  of  false  followers  to 
betray  him  to  those  enemies  ;  his  friends,  his  chosen 
friends,  sleep  on.  Yes,  even  those  who  were  the  loud- 
est in  profession,  and  the  boldest  in  defiance,  when 
the  danger  was  far  off,  are  found  asleep  when  it  ap- 
proaches. And  that  sleep  would  prove  to  be  the 
sleep  of  death,  if  we  had  not  an  High  Priest  who  can 
be  touched  with  the  sense  of  our  infirmities,  and  when 
he  sees  us  thus  -  asleep,  comes  near  and  rouses  us. 
Dear  friends,  there  may  be  some  before  me  now,  who, 
though  sincere  believers,  have  been  overcome  by 
sleep.  Your  senses  and  your  intellects  may  be 
awake,  your  conscience  has  its  fitful  starts  and  inter- 
vals of  wakefulness,  when  scared  out  of  its  slumbers 
by  terrific  dreams.  But  your  aflections  are  asleep. 
Your  love  to  Christ,  your  dread  of  sin,  your  hope  of 
heaven,  your  abstraction  from  this  world,  your  taste 


42  SERMONS. 

for  spiritual  food,  your  zeal  for  God,  your  charity — 
all  tliese  are  exercises  wliicL.  you  have  exj^erienced  ; 
but  alas,  they  are  but  "  shadows,  not  substantial 
things  ;  "  the  ghosts  of  past  experience,  the  echo  of 
hushed  voices  :  you  hear  the  gospel,  but  it  is  like  the 
drowsy  lull  of  distant  waters,  making  sleep  more 
sound ;  you  see  its  light,  but  with  your  eyelids 
closed,  and  so  subdued  its  splendour,  that  it  only 
soothes  the  sense  and  deepens  its  repose.  You  feel 
the  breathings  of  the  Spirit,  but  so  gently,  that  they 
only  add  illusion  to  your  dreams.  Is  it  not  so  ?  JSTo 
wonder,  then,  that  your  religion  is  a  visionary  and 
ideal  thing :  I  do  not  mean  that  it  has  no  reality,  but 
that  its  outward  actings  are  suspended,  and  its  power 
wasted  in  conceptions  and  imaginations  never  to  be 
realized. 

If  this  is  your  experience,  I  appeal  to  you,  and 
ask  you  whether  even  in  this  dreamy  state,  you  have 
not  felt  the  gentle  hand  of  Christ  at  times  upon  you  ? 
Has  not  the  most  slothful  and  obdurate  of  us  all,  the 
most  absorbed  in  worldly  cares  and  pleasures,  some- 
times, in  his  calmer  and  more  serious  moments,  felt 
that  mild  but  potent  pressure?  Oh,  is  there  one  of 
us  so  given  up  of  God,  so  forgotten  of  the  Saviom*,  as 
to  be  left  to  slumber  with  the  blaze  of  the  betrayer's 
torch  upon  his  very  eyelids  ?  God  forbid !  N^o, 
there  is  not  a  man  or  woman  here  to-night,  believing, 
but  asleep,  who  has  not  once  and  again  been  roused, 
in  one  form  or  another,  by  the  Son  of  Man  himself. 
Do  you  doubt  it  ?  Let  me  aid  your  recollection  by 
a  few  suggestions.  Have  you  not  had  your  personal 
afflictions?     Has  not  your  house  been  visited  by  sick 


MAEK  14,  41.  43 

ness?  Are  there  no  chasms  at  your  table  or  your 
fireside  ?  Are  there  no  shadows  on  the  last  leaves  of 
your  history,  no  doubts,  no  darkness,  no  perplexity, 
no  pain  of  mind  or  body,  no  disgrace,  no  losses? 
And  do  you  wonder  at  these  hard,  these  unkind 
strokes  of  the  Eedcemer's  hand  ?  O  sleeping  Chris- 
tian, he  is  but  touching  you  to  save  you  from  per- 
dition. And  if  the  noise  of  this  world  would  but 
cease  to  fill  your  ears,  you  would  hear  the  injured 
but  forgiving  Saviour,  saying  in  that  same  sad  gentle 
voice,  with  which  he  said  to  Peter,  James,  and  John, 
"  Could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ?  " 

But  it  is  not  only  in  personal  afflictions  that  the 
Saviour  xouses  you.  Have  you  not  felt  his  hand  in 
public  trials  ?  Have  you  not  felt  it  in  the  trials  of 
the  Church  ?  Have  you  not  felt  it  in  the  creeping 
growth  of  error,  in  the  strife  of  tongues,  and  in  the 
lacerating  schism?  Have  you  not  felt  it  in  the 
abounding  of  iniquity,  and  in  the  waxing  cold  of 
many  a  burning  heart  ?  Have  you  not  felt  it  in  the 
growth  of  a  censorious,  harsh,  and  bitter  spirit,  and 
the  exchange  of  kindly  charities  for  ostentatious  right- 
eousness ?  Have  you  not  felt  it  in  the  decay  of 
Christian  knowledge,  in  the  prevalence  of  shallow,  su- 
perficial Christianity,  and  in  the  consequent  triumph 
of  fanaticism  ?  Have  you  not  felt  it  in  the  shock  of 
revolution,  threatening  the  foundations  of  society  it- 
self? Have  you  not  felt  it  in  the  leanness  of  your 
own  souls,  and  in  the  barrenness  of  your  Master's 
vineyard?  And  in  each  and  all  of  these  successive 
visitations,  can  you  not  hear  the  accents  of  the  Son 
of  Man,  gently  reproaching  your  long  spiritual  slum- 


44:  SIEMONS. 

ber,  as  the  cause  of  all  these  evils  ?  Can  you  not  hear 
him  saying,  even  to  yourselves,  as  he  said  to  his  dis- 
ciples, with  a  bursting  heart,  that  night,  "  Could  ye 
not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ?  " 

But  it  is  not  merely  in  afflictions  and  in  public 
trials  that  he  thus  accosts  us.  If  you  have  not  seen 
him  in  the  fire  of  fanaticism,  if  you  have  not  felt  him 
in  the  earthquake  of  commotion,  if  you  have  not 
heard  him  in  the  whirlwind  of  intestine  strife,  you 
may  have  heard  him  in  the  still  small  voice  of  mercy. 
Have  you  had  no  signal  mercies,  since  you  fell  asleep  ? 
No  surprising  deliverances  or  unexpected  restora- 
tions? No  relief  from  sorrow,  and  disgrace,  and 
care  ?  No  increase  of  substance,  no  additions  to  your 
comfort,  no  enlarged  opportunities  of  usefulness  to 
others,  no  occasional  glimpses  of  heaven  for  yourself? 
And  can  you  hear  all  this  enumerated,  and  yet  fail 
to  hear  the  Master,  in  and  through  these  mercies,  say- 
ing, "  Could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ?  " 

Nor  is  this  all.  Besides  the  voice  of  personal  af- 
tlictions,  and  of  public  trials,  and  of  private  mercies, 
there  is  a  voice  in  public  mercies  too.  I  ask  not 
whether  you  have  felt  Christ's  hand,  or  heard  his 
voice  in  national  prosperity,  in  the  continuance  of 
national  advantages,  and  in  deliverance  from  national 
calamities,  too  well  deserved.  But  have  you  not  felt 
his  hand  in  mercies  to  the  chui-ch.  I  refer  not  to  the 
vmdication  of  her  civil  rights,  however  timely  and 
remarkable,  but  to  those  spii'itual  mercies  which  are 
apt  to  be  forgotten,  in  the  tumult  of  political  and  party 
exultation.  Has  he  not  visited  some  forsaken  spots  even 
in  the  midst  of  surrounding  desolation  ?     Has  hp  ;Rot; 


i 


MARK  14,  41.  45 

appeared  there,  to  heal  divisions,  to  reform  ibuses,  to 
arouse  attention,  to  decide  the  wavering,  to  reclaim 
"backsliders,  to  increase  the  spirit  of  prayer,  to  give 
life  and  vigour  to  the  preaching  of  the  word,  to  make 
temporal  affairs  look  small,  and  eternal  things  as  large 
as  life  ?  "  To  open  the  eyes  of  many  blind,  to  turn 
them  from  darkness  to  light,  and  from  the  power  of 
Satan  unto  God  ?  "  And  what  is  the  language  of  these 
signal  mercies  to  us,  who,  all  around,  have  stood  still 
and  seen  the  salvation  of  God  ?  Stood  still !  nay 
rather,  who  have  lain  asleep.  Is  it  not  the  voice  of 
God,  reproaching  our  unwatchfulness  and  spiritual 
slumber  ?  Is  it  not  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  Man,  in 
sorrow  not  in  anger,  saying  to  us  here,  as  he  once  said 
in  Gethsemane :  "  What !  could  ye  not  watch  with 
me  one  hour  ?  " 

These  words  were  twice  repeated,  after  the  lirst 
and  second  agony  and  prayer.  But  when  our  Lord 
had  for  the  third  time  fallen  prostrate  and  arisen, 
when  He  came  a  third  time  to  his  friends  and  found 
them  sleeping,  he  no  longer  expostulated ;  he  no 
longer  asked  whether  they  could  not  watch  with  him 
one  hour.  He  aroused  them  indeed,  but  with  another 
form  of  speech :  "  Sleep  on  now,"  or  "  hereafter,"  as  it 
might  have  been  translated.  There  is  something  far 
more  awful  in  this  mild  but  significant  permission  to 
sleep  on,  than  in  all  the  invectives  or  reproofs  he 
could  have  uttered.  "  Sleep  on  henceforth  and  take 
your  rest."  Oh !  what  a  rest  is  that  which  must  be 
taken  while  our  Master  is  betrayed,  and  scourged, 
and  buffeted,  and  spit  upon !  "  It  is  enough,"  or 
rather,  "  it  is  finished ;  it  is  now  too  late  to  watch." 


46  SERMOXS. 

"Behold,"  and  liere  perhaps  he  pointed  to  Iscariot  as 
he  drew  near  with  his  gang — "  behold  the  Son  of  Man 
is  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners."  Brethren,  dc 
your  hearts  swell  with  shame  and  indignation,  as  you 
hear  the  Son  of  Man  thus  addressing  his  disciples, 
who  had  slept,  instead  of  Avatching  to  protect  hia 
sacred  agony  from  premature  intrusion,  and  to  pro- 
tect themselves  from  coining  danger?  What,  then, 
will  be  your  feelings  when  he  thus  addresses  you? 
when  after  rousing  you,  reproaching  you,  and  warn- 
ing you  in  vain ;  after  saying,  by  afflictions  and  by 
mercies,  public  and  private,  both  to  you  and  to  the 
Church,  "  Could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ? " 
and  seeing  you,  in  each  case,  relapse  at  once  into  a  state 
of  slumber,  he  shall  cease  to  visit  you  with  salutary 
warnings,  give  you  up  to  the  stagnation  of  your  spirit- 
ual sloth,  and,  by  his  providential  dealings,  say  to  you, 
and  those  around  you,  "  Sleep  on  now,  and  take  your 
rest  ?  "  Can  you  bear  it  ?  Can  any  of  us  bear  it  ?  Yes 
we  can  bear  it^  without  pain,  and  with  indifference,  be- 
cause he  will  not  say  it  till  all  other  means  have 
failed,  and  till  our  hearts  are  hard  through  the  de- 
ceitfulness  of  sin.  If  we  wait  for  this  last,  sad,  terri- 
ble farewell  to  break  our  slumbers,  before  we  begin 
to  watch  and  pray,  we  wait  forever.  The  only  hope 
is  to  anticipate  that  moment ;  to  hear  our  Lord,  be- 
forehand saying,  "  Sleep  on  now  ;  "  to  imagine,  while 
we  have  some  feeling  left,  what  we  should  feel,  if  we 
heard  him  tell  us  now  to  take  our  rest,  because  it  is 
too  late  to  watch,  because  the  hour  is  already  come, 
and  the  Son  of  Man  is  just  about  to  be  betrayed  into 
the  hands  of  sinners. 


MARK  14,  41.  47 

I  fear  it  is  a  growing  sin  and  error  of  tlie  Cliurcli, 
to  forget  that  the  man  Christ  Jesus  still  exists ; 
to  act  as  if  we  thought  that  his  humanity  evapo- 
rated, or  became  assimilated  to  the  cloud  which  bore 
him  from  the  mountain  to  the  skies.  Or  if  we  believe 
in  his  continued  existence  as  a  man,  we  are  too  apt  to 
think  of  him  as  feeling  no  concera,  no  human  sym- 
pathy in  our  affairs.  I  dare  not  lift  the  veil  which 
God  has  hung  around  our  Saviour's  present  residence, 
or,  with  profane  conjecture,  try  to  penetrate  its  mys- 
teries ;  but  as  long  as  I  believe  the  Bible,  how  can  I 
forget  that  Christ  is  still  a  witness  of  terrestrial  things, 
and  that  he  has  a  heart  to  feel,  not  only  for  the  sor- 
rows, but  for  the  sins  of  his  disciples.  Oh,  if  instead 
of  our  jejune  conceptions  of  an  abstract  deity,  an  ab- 
stract Christ,  and  an  ideal  heaven,  we  could  think 
and  feel  about  him  as  the  twelve  did  when  he  was 
absent  from  their  sight ;  when,  for  example,  he  had 
just  ascended,  and  their  minds  were  stamped  with 
fresh  impressions  of  his  person  ;  if  we  could  think  of 
him,  not  as  a  nonentity,  not  as  an  ancient  half-forgot- 
ten personage,  but  as  we  think  of  friends  whom  we 
have  lost ;  then  we  should  read  his  history  with  other 
eyes,  and  other  hearts.  Oh,  then,  it  would  be  easy 
to  believe  that  he,  who  was  with  the  disciples  in  the 
garden,  is  now  here ;  that  he,  whose  heart  was  touched 
by  their  neglect,  may  still  be  touched  by  ours ;  that 
he,  who  said  to  them,  "  Sleep  on  now,"  may  say  the 
same  to  us.  God  grant  that  the  time  be  not  at  hand, 
when  he  shall  thus  speak  to  all  or  any  of  those  pres- 
ent !  God  grant  that  the  spiritual  dearth  which  we 
experience,  and  the  multiplied  evils  which  have  vexed 


48  SERMONS. 

tlie  Cliurclij  be  not  so  many  voices,  in  wliich  Christ 
is  saying  to  ns,  "  Sleep  on  now,  and  take  yonr  rest ; 
the  hour  is  come." 

That  this  may  not  prove  to  be  indeed  the  case,  "we 
must  arise  and  call  upon  our  God  ;  we  must  come  uj 
to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the  mighty.  But  oh 
remember,  that  the  weapons  of  our  warfare  are  not 
carnal.  When  the  presumptuous  Simon  was  at  last 
aroused,  and  saw  his  Master's  danger,  he  thought  to 
atone  by  violence  for  past  neglect.  And  many  a 
modern  Simon  does  the  same.  "When  once  aroused 
they  draw  the  sword  of  fiery  fanaticism,  to  wound 
themselves  and  others,  and  it  is  often  not  till  they 
have  shed  much  precious  blood,  that  they  are  calm 
enough  to  hear  the  Saviour  saying,  "Put  up  again 
thy  sword  into  his  place,  for  all  they  that  take  the 
sword  shall  perish  by  the  sword."  And  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say,  that  most  of  those  who,  in  our  own  day, 
have  conspicuously  grasped  the  sword  of  fierce  vin- 
dictive zeal,  have  perished  .by  it,  not  in  their  souls, 
but  in  their  character  and  influence.  God's  retribu- 
tions are  infallible  and  just.  The  torrent  of  fero- 
cious zeal  which  recently  swept  over  us,  and  threat- 
ened all  our  ancient  landmarks  with  subversion,  has 
subsided,  or  been  hardened,  like  the  lava,  into  rock, 
while  the  landmarks,  which  it  hid  from  sight,  at  one 
time  by  its  surges,  still  retain  their  ancient  places,  un- 
consumed,  unshaken.  But  is  there  no  danger  from 
an  opposite  direction  ?  Is  it  any  consolation  that  the 
sword  is  in  its  scabbard,  if  the  bearers  of  the  sword 
are  fast  asleep,  instead  of  watching  ?  Is  there  no 
cause  to  fear  that,  having  vanquished  error  and  dis- 


MAKE  It,  41.  49 

order,  as  we  tliink,  we  shall  fall  asleep  upon  our  arms 
and  laurels  ?  Oh  let  us  remember,  that  the  enemies 
of  Christ  are  still  to  be  contended  with,  not  only  in 
the  Church  and  world,  but  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and 
in  our  own  hearts  individually.  Let  us  bear  in  mind 
that  although  every  heresy  were  banished  from  our 
pulpits  and  our  schools,  we  may  not  cease  to  watch 
and  pray,  lest  we  should  enter  into  worse  temptation  ; 
lest,  in  the  midst  of  an  unprofitable  orthodoxy,  soula 
should  be  lost  through  our  untimely  slumbers.  If 
this  is  to  be  dreaded  above  all  disaster,  watch,  breth 
ren,  watch  and  pray ! 


m. 


Matthew  11,  12. — From  the  days  of  J'ohu  the  Baptist  until  now, 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  sufFercth  violence,  and  the  violent  talie  it  by 
force. 

"What  avg  call  the  old  economy  or  old  dispensa- 
tion, was  a  temporary  and  preparatory  sj'stem,  ex- 
tending only  to  the  advent  of  the  Saviour,  or,  at  most, 
to  the  completion  of  his  saving  work.  His  appear- 
ance necessarily  brought  with  it  a  change  of  dispen- 
sations, which  had  been  foreseen  and  provided  for 
from  the  beginning.  But  this  part  of  the  divine  pur 
pose  had  been  gradually  lost  sight  of,  and  the  Jews 
liad  learned  to  regard  their  temporary  system  as  per- 
petual, and  its  symbolical  rites  as  intrinsically  effica- 
cious. To  such  a  state  of  feeling  and  opinion  the 
abrogation  of  the  ancient  system  seemed  a  monstrous 
revolution,  a  calamitous  catastrophe,  the  prospect  of 
which  shocked  their  strongest  prepossessions,  and 
seemed  to  blast  their  dearest  hopes.  In  order  to  cor- 
rect this  error,  and  prepare  the  way  for  the  event  so 
much  dreaded,  even  by  many  devout  Jews,  it  pleased 
God  to  adopt  a  method  which  should  symbolize,  and, 
as  it  were,  embody  the  true  relation  of  the  old  and 
new  economy,  and  the  change  by  which  the  one  was 
to  replace  the  other. 


MATTHEW  11,  12.  51 

To  secure  this  end,  Christ  did  not  come  abruptly, 
but  was  preceded  by  a  forerunner,  whose  personal 
relations  to  him,  and  whose  public  ministry,  present- 
ed, in  a  kind  of  type  or  emblem,  the  peculiar  features 
of  the  Law  as  contrasted  with  the  Gospel — or  rather, 
exhibited,  at  one  view,  both  the  points  of  resem- 
blance and  of  dissimilitude.  These  points  are  obvious 
enough.  As,  on  the  one  hand,  both  the  old  and  the 
new  dispensation  were  alike  from  God,  equally  genuine 
and  equally  authoritative  ;  as  they  were  both  intend- 
ed for  man's  benefit,  and,  ultimately,  for  the  benefit 
of  men  in  general ;  as  the  grand  design  of  both  was 
moral  and  spiritual,  not  material  and  temporal ;  so, 
on  the  other  hand,  while  one  was  provisional,  the 
other  was  permanent ;  one  was  preparatory  to  the 
other,  and  by  necessary  consequence,  inferior  in  dig- 
nity ;  the  peculiar  features  of  the  one  were,  in  a  great 
measure,  arbitrary  and  conventional,  those  of  the  other, 
necessary  and  essential ;  the  one  was  typical  and 
ceremonial  in  its  character,  the  other  spiritual  and 
substantial.  The  one  was  meant  to  teach  the  need 
and  excite  the  desire  of  what  could  be  fully  supplied 
only  by  the  other. 

These  resemblances  and  contrasts  of  the  two  great 
systems,  were  to  be  embodied  in  the  person  and  the 
ministry  of  two  individuals  as  their  representatives. 
Of  the  gospel,  no  such  representative  was  needed  ex- 
cept Christ  himself  In  the  one  emj^loyed  to  repre- 
sent the  Law,  it  might  have  been  expected  that  these 
prerequisites  would  meet ;  that  he  should  be  person- 
ally near  akin  to  Him  whose  way  he  came  to  pre- 
pare ;  that  he  should  be  a  person  of  high  rank  and 


52  SERMONS. 

sacred  dignitj  ;  that  he  should  live  secluded  from  the 
rest  of  men,  a  life  of  abstinent  austerity  ;  that  the 
moral  tone,  both  of  his  doctrine  and  example,  should 
be  high ;  that  his  appeals  should  be  directly  to  the 
conscience,  and  intended  to  excite  the  sense  of  guilt, 
danger,  want,  and  weakness  ;  that  for  this  very  rea- 
son, his  entire  ministry  should  be  prospective  and 
preparatory,  introductory  to  something  intrinsically 
better  and  practically  more  efficacious  than  itself.  All 
this  might  have  seemed  beforehand  necessary  in  the 
forerunner  "who  "was  to  symbolize  the  old  dispensa- 
tion, as  distinguished  from  the  new;  and  all  this  was 
actually  realized  in  the  person  and  ministry  of  John 
the  Baptist.  He  was  a  kinsman  of  our  Lord  ;  he  was 
a  little  older,  both  in  person  and  in  office  ;  he  was  of 
sacerdotal  rank  and  lineage  ;  the  child  of  eminently 
pious  parents ;  one  whose  birth  had  been  announced 
and  accompanied  by  messages  from  heaven  and  re- 
markable divine  interpositions;  a  Xazarite  from  the 
Avomb ;  a  dweller  in  the  desert  from  early  youth 
"  until  the  day  of  his  showing  unto  Israel." 

With  the  old  dispensation  he  was  clearly  connected 
by  remarkable  prophecies,  as  the  voice  of  one  crying 
in  the  wilderness,  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord — 
as  the  messenger  who  should  come  before  the  face  of 
the  Angel  of  the  Covenant — as  the  new  Elijah  or 
Elias,  in  whose  ministry  the  spirit  and  power  of  the 
old  reformer  were  to  be  revived  in  Judah,  scarcely 
less  apostate  now  than  Israel  was  then.  His  con- 
nexion with  the  old  dispensation  was  made  still  more 
clear  and  marked,  by  external  coincidences,  provi- J 
dentially  secured  and  made  conspicuous.     His  locaM 


i 


MATTHEW  11,  12.  53 

habitation  carried  back  the  thoughts  of  those  who  saw 
or  heard  him,  to  the  forty  years  error  in  the  desert, 
and  the  giving  of  the  Law  upon  Mt.  Sinai.  His  minis- 
trations at  the  Jordan  called  to  mind  the  passage  of 
that  river  at  the  conquest  of  Canaan.  His  hairy  gar- 
ments and  abstemious  fare,  reminded  all  spectators  of 
the  prophets  in  general, and  Elijah  in  particular.  His 
distant  calls  upon  the  people  to  go  out  to  him,  in- 
stead of  seeking  them  in  their  usual  places  of  resort, 
was  perfectly  analogous  to  the  segregation  and  seclu- 
sion of  the  chosen  people  under  the  law,  and  to  the 
local  and  restrictive  institutions  of  the  law  itself. 

With  all  this  agreed  his  preaching,  which  was 
preparatory.  He  called  men  to  repentance,  as  essen- 
tial to  remission  of  sins,  but  he  did  not  offer  remission 
itself.  He  preached  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  not  as 
already  established,  but  as  at  hand.  He  described 
himself  as  a  mere  forerunner,  inferior  in  dignity  and 
power  to  one  who  was  to  follow,  and  to  whom  he 
was  not  worth}',  in  his  own  strong  language,  to 
perform  the  menial  office  of  unlacing  or  carrying  his 
sandals. 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  significant  rite,  by 
which  his  preaching  was  accompanied,  and  from 
which  he  derived  his  title.  The  baptism  of  John  was 
merely  the  forerunner  of  the  baptism  of  Christ — the 
baptism  of  repentance  as  distinguished  from  the  bajD- 
tism  of  faith — the  baptism  of  water  as  distinguished 
from  the  baptism  of  fire  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  From 
all  this,  it  is  evident  that  John's  preparatory  ministry 
was  perfectly  adapted  to  its  providential  purpose, 
that  of  embodying,  and,  as  it  were,  personifying  the 


54  SERMONS. 

true  relation  of  the  old  dispensation  to  the  new,  of 
the  hxw  to  the  gospel,  not  as  rival  or  antagonistic  sj's- 
tems,  but  as  the  beginning  and  the  end,  the  inception 
and  perfection  of  the  same  great  process. 

That  the  resemblance  of  the  type  and  the  things 
typified  might  be  complete,  it  was  ordered  that  John's 
ministry,  instead  of  ceasing  when  our  Lord's  began, 
should  be  contemporaneous  with  it  for  a  time,  just  as 
the  old  and  new  dispensations,  for  important  provi- 
dential reasons,  were  to  merge  or  fade  into  each  other, 
without  any  clearly  defined  point  of  transition  or  line 
of  demarkation,  so  that  the  Church,  under  both  its 
manifestations,  might  maintain  its  identity,  and  be, 
like  its  master's  robe,  "  without  seam,  woven  from  the 
top  throughout."  (John  19,  23.)  The  consequence  of 
this  was,  that,  while  some  rejected  both,  and  some 
passed  through  John's,  as  a  preparatory  school  to  that 
of  Christ,  others  remained  in  it  after  its  preparatory 
work  M'as  done,  just  as  the  body  of  the  Jews  eventually 
clung  to  the  j\Iosaic  dispensation,  after  it  had  an- 
swered its  design  and  been  sui^erseded  by  the  dispen- 
sation of  the  Son  and  Spirit.  To  such  it  is  not,  per- 
haps, surprising  that  the  j^roofs  of  the  Messiahship  of 
Jesus  should  have  seemed  inconclusive.  It  is  much 
more  surprising  that  the  faith  of  John  himself  should 
seem  to  waver,  after  his  imprisonment,  as  some  sup- 
pose to  be  implied  in  his  message,  sent  by  two  of  his 
disciples  to  our  Lord :  Art  thou  he  that  is  to  come, 
or  are  we  waiting  for  another?  However  easy  it 
may  be  to  explain  this,  by  supposing  it  to  be  intended 
merely  to  confirm  the  faith  or  solve  the  doubts  of  his  dis- 
ciples, neither  of  these  solutions  is  absolutely  needed,  or 


MATTHEW  n,  12.  55 

80  natural  as  that  wliicli  supposes  that  the  message 
was  expressive  of  J  ohn's  own  misgivings,  not  indeed 
as  to  the  person  of  Messiah,  which  had  been  made 
known  to  him  hy  special  revelation,  and  to  which  he 
had  repeatedly  and  publicly  borne  witness,  but  with 
respect  to  our  Saviour's  method  of  proceeding,  which 
appears  to  have  departed  too  much  from  the  spirit 
and  the  forms  of  the  Old  Testament,  to  be  entirely 
satisfactory  or  even  intelligible  to  the  last  prophet  of 
the  old  economy,  whose  inspiration  did  not  reach  be- 
yond the  close  of  the  system  which  was  done  away 
in  Christ.  The  person  of  Christ  himself,  as  the 
founder  of  a  new  dispensation,  he  distinctly  recognized, 
but  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  prepared,  by  any 
divine  teaching,  for  the  total  revolution  in  the  exter- 
nal mode  of  serving  God  and  saving  souls,  which  be- 
gan to  be  disclosed  in  the  personal  ministry  of  Christ 
himself. 

That  this  is  the  true  solution  of  John's  seeming 
vacillation — namely,  that  he  still  stood  on  the  ground 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  still  belonged  to  the  Jewish 
dispensation,  and  was,  therefore,  not  prepared,  with- 
out a  special  revelation,  which  had  not  been  vouch- 
safed to  him,  to  understand  or  appreciate  the  new 
state  of  things  which  Christ  liad  partially  begun  to 
introduce — may  be  gathered  from  our  Saviour's  treat- 
ment of  his  message.  After  sending  back  the  mes- 
sengers, with  a  reference  to  the  miracles  which  they 
beheld,  as  proofs  of  his  Messiahship,  he  seems  to  have 
hastened  to  prevent  any  unjust  or  unfavourable  infer- 
ences, by  the  multitudes,  from  what  they  had  just 
heard,  as  if  John  the  Baptist  had  retracted  his  testi- 


56  SERMONS. 

mony,  or  wavered  in  his  own  belief.  To  this  end,  ho 
reminded  them,  in  lively  figurative  terms,  peculiarly 
adapted  to  afiect  an  oriental  audience,  that  when  they 
went  forth  in  such  vast  crowds  to  the  wilderness,  to 
hear  and  be  baptized  of  John,  the  man  whom  they 
had  sought  and  found  there,  was  like  any  thing  rather 
than  a  reed  shaken  by  the  wind — a  man  of  versatile 
and  fickle  temper,  or  of  uncertain,  fluctuating  judg- 
ment— and  like  any  thing  rather  than  a  softly  dressed 
and  smooth-tongued  courtier,  who  suppressed  the 
truth  to  flatter  and  conciliate  his  hearers.  On  the 
contrary,  they  knew  that  John  the  Baptist  was  an 
eminently  bold,  uncompromising,  plain-spoken  wit- 
ness to  the  truth  of  God,  and  against  the  sins  of  men. 
It  would  be  folly,  therefore,  to  suppose  that  his  public 
testimony  to  our  Lord's  Messiahship,  was  either  given 
insincerely,  through  the  fear  of  men  and  the  desire  to 
please  them,  or  was  now  retracted,  from  a  wavering 
fiiith  or  fickleness  of  temper.  This  would  be  incon- 
ceivable in  such  a  man,  though  uninspired  ;  how  much 
more  in  a  prophet — a  prophet  in  the  full  and  highest 
sense  of  the  Old  Testament  expression— a  prophet 
equal  in  authority  to  any  who  had  gone  before  him  ; 
nay,  in  one  respect  superior  to  them  all,  as  the  im- 
mediate forerunner  of  the  new  dispensation,  as  the 
last  in  the  long  series  of  Old  Testament  prophets,  in 
whom  the  succession  was  to  cease,  or  from  whom  it 
was  to  pass  and  be  forever  merged  in  the  prophetic 
ministry  of  Christ  himself.  All  the  prophets  of  the 
law,  i.  e.  all  the  prophetic  intimations  of  the  old 
economy,  whether  formal  predictions  or  typical  pre- 
figurations — not  excepting   the    general   prospective 


i 


MATTHEW  11,    2.  57 

character  wliicli  stamped  the  system  as  a  whole,  as 
well  as  some  of  its  more  salient  points — all  these,  our 
Saviour  tells  the  people,  j)rophesied  as  far  as  up  to 
John  tlie  Baptist;  not  that  he  was  the  great  end  to 
which  they  pointed, — this  was  Christ  himself,  as  John 
had  again  and  again  solemnly  declared, — but  he  was 
the  last  of  the  forerunners,  of  the  heralds  who  pro 
claimed  the  advent  and  prepared  the  way  of  the  Great 
Deliverer:  down  to  John  the  Baptist,  and  including 
him,  this  preparatory  and  premonitory  system  still 
continued,  and  in  him,  as  the  immediate  predecessor 
of  the  Saviour,  it  must  have  an  end. 

The  very  same  considerations,  therefore,  which 
exalted  John  the  Baptist  in  the  scale  of  the  old  econo- 
my, proved  that  he  belonged  to  it,  and  not  to  the  new. 
"While  it  was  still  true  that  there  had  never  before 
appeared  a  greater  man,  when  measured  by  that 
standard,  it  was  equally  true  that  the  least  in  the  king- 
dom of  heaven — the  new  dispensation — was  greater 
than  he,  i.  e.  more  enlightened  as  to  the  nature  ot 
that  dispensation,  and  the  points  in  which  it  differed 
from  the  old,  and  better  able,  both  to  appreciate  and 
carry  into  execution  this  new  form  of  the  divine  ad- 
ministration, than  even  the  greater  of  those,  who, 
though  invested  with  divine  authority,  were  still  but 
ministers  of  the  old  restrictive  system,  and  might, 
therefore,  be  expected  to  feel  some  surprise,  if  not  dis- 
pleasure, at  the  sudden  disuse  of  the  ancient  methods, 
the  neglect  of  mere  externals,  so  inseparable  from  re- 
ligion under  the  Mosaic  institutions,  and  the  casting 
down  not  only  of  the  barriers  between  strict  Jews  and 
notorious  sinners  of  their  own  race,  but  between  that 

VOL.  II. o^ 


5g  SERMONS. 

race  itself  and  those  from  wliicli  it  had  for  ages  dwelt 
apart,  a  change  already  unequivocally  intimated  in 
our  Lord's  instructions  and  his  practice,  and  which, 
viewed  from  the  ground  of  the  old  dispensation,  might 
well  seem  to  confound  unchangeable  distinctions  and 
to  make  Christ  the  minister  of  sin. 

That  such  misapprehensions  should  exist  in  the 
mind  of  John  the  Baptist,  as  a  prophet  of  the  old  dis- 
pensation, is  certainly  less  strange,  and  in  itself  not 
more  incredible,  than  that  Peter,  even  after  the  effu- 
sion of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  should 
have  still  cherished  the  belief  that,  although  the  Gen- 
tiles might  be  saved  as  well  as  Jews,  through  faith 
in  the  Redeemer,  they  could  only  exercise  that  faith 
by  first  becoming  Jews,  or  conforming  to  the  law  of 
Moses.  Of  this  error  he  was  disabused  by  a  special 
revelation  ;  and  as  none  such  seems  to  have  been  sent 
to  John  the  Baptist,  it  is  not  surprising  that  without 
it,  and  in  prison,  he  should  have  looked  at  what  was 
going  on  beyond  the  walls  of  the  fortress  where  he 
lay,  with  the  eyes  of  an  Old  Testament  prophet,  rather 
than  with  those  of  a  New  Testament  saint. 

This  seems,  as  I  have  said,  to  be  implied  in  our 
Lord's  vindication  of  him,  as  a  true  believer  and  a 
great  prophet,  but  still  a  minister  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, not  of  the  'New,  to  whom  the  freedom  and  en- 
largement of  the  course  on  which  our  Lord  had  either 
actually  entered,  or  prospectively  marked  out  for  his 
apostles,  might  very  naturally  seem  to  be  a  general 
removal  of  old  landmarks,  and  a  lifting  of  the  flood- 
gates which  had  hitherto  shut  off  the  appropriated 
waters  of  the  Jewish  church  from  the  natural  stream 


MATTHEW  11,  12.  59 

and  current  of  the  nations.  Even  in  vindicating  John, 
onr  Saviour  seems  to  intimate  that  this  distinguished 
prophet  had  been  led,  by  his  peculiar  position  with 
respect  to  the  outgoing  and  incoming  dispensation, 
to  expect  that  the  kingdom  of  Messiah  would  be  set 
up  by  a  methodical  and  formal  process,  perhaps  not 
witliout  a  large  admixture  of  ceremonial  services ;  at 
all  events,  with  due  conformity  to  ancient  usages  and 
regulations;  "whereas,"  he  adds,  as  if  appealing  to 
their  own  observation  for  the  proof  of  the  assertion, 
"  from  the  days  of  John  the  Baptist  until  now,"  i.  e. 
since  the  work  of  my  forerunner  was  completed,  and 
my  own  begun,  "the  kingdom  of  heaven  suflfereth 
violence  and  the  violent  take  it  by  force." 

That  this  does  not  refer  to  persecution,  is  apparent 
from  the  notorious  fact,  that  the  only  persecution 
whicli  had  yet  taken  place,  was  that  of  John  himself, 
who  had  just  been  excluded  from  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  in  the  technical,  distinctive  sense,  or,  at  least, 
assigned  the  lowest  place  in  it,  which,  of  course,  for- 
bids his  treatment  by  his  enemies  to  be  regarded  or 
described  as  that  experienced  by  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Equally  incorrect  is  the  assumption,  that 
the  violence  here  mentioned  in  connexion  with  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  is  active,  not  passive — the  king- 
dom of  heaven  exercises  violence  or  irresistible  power 
over  men.  This  is  equally  at  variance  with  the  usage 
of  the  words  immediately  in  question  and  with  the 
other  clause — the  violent  take  it  by  force.  The  only 
natural  interpretation  is  the  one  which  takes  the 
whole  as  a  bold  and  strong,  but  striking  and  intelli- 
gible figure,  to  denote  the  eagerness  and  freedom  from 


60  SERMONS. 

restraint,  witli  which  men  of  every  class  and  character, 
Pharisees  and  publicans,  reputed  saints  and  sinners, 
Jews  and  Gentiles,  had  begun  or  were  soon  to  begin 
to  press  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  through  or  over 
every  barrier,  moral,  legal,  ceremonial,  or  natural 
distinction. 

The  particular  image  most  readily  suggested  by 
the  words,  is,  perhaps,  that  of  a  fortress  long  main- 
tained by  a  veteran  garrison,  but  suddenly  thrown 
open  by  its  new  commander,  and  impetuously  entered 
by  what  seems  to  be  a  multitude  of  foes.  To  those 
within,  this  might  well  appear  to  put  an  end  to  the 
defence  and  to  decide  the  contest.  But  after  a  while 
it  is  perceived  that  those  who  have  thus  tumultuously 
entered,  are  not  enemies,  but  friends,  and  that  this 
violent  accession  to  the  strength  of  the  defence  is 
more  eifective  than  any  which  could  have  been  se- 
cured by  gradual  recruitings  or  occasional  desertions 
from  the  enemy,  however  necessary  these  resources 
may  be  when  the  other  fails,  or  in  the  intervals  be- 
tween these  sudden  and  extensive  movements  from 
without  to  the  interior  of  the  fortress  or  the  besieged 
town.  In  some  points  this  comparison,  like  every 
other,  does  not  hold  good  ;  but  it  may  serve  to  illus- 
trate the  essential  difference  between  John  the  Bap- 
tist's expectations,  and  the  course  actually  taken  by 
our  Saviour,  and  referred  to  in  the  words  of  the  text : 
"  From  the  days  of  John  the  Baptist  until  now,  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  suffereth  violence,  and  the  violent 
take  it  by  force." 

The  circumstances  of  the  case  to  which  these 
words  had  primary  reference,  were  so  peculiar,  so  in- 


MATTHEW  11,  12.  61 

capable  of  repetition  or  recurrence,  that  it  may  seem 
impossible  to  draw  from  them  any  lesson  directly  ap- 
plicable to  ourselves  or  to  the  actual  condition  of  the 
church  or  of  the  world.  It  is  not,  liowever,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  historical  curiosity,  an  interesting  reminiscence 
of  antiquity,  that  this  and  many  other  similar  dis- 
courses of  our  Saviour  have  been  left  on  record.  They 
were  rather  intended  to  exemplify  the  nature  and  dis- 
tinctive character  of  his  kingdom,  as  distinguished 
not  only  from  all  false  religions,  but  from  all  that  was 
temporary  in  the  ancient  manifestation  of  the  true, 
and  thereby  to  preserve  us  from  falling  into  errors 
which  were  committed  and  corrected  eighteen  centu 
ries  ago.  We  are,  therefore,  at  liberty,  nay  bound, 
to  apply  these  instructions  to  our  own  use,  not  by  fan- 
ciful accommodation,  not  by  allegorical  confusion  of 
things  utterly  distinct,  but  by  a  fair  application  of 
the  principle  involved  in  the  original  case  to  any  other 
case,  however  distant  and  however  different  in  form 
and  circumstance,  to  which  that  principle  is  natu- 
rally applicable.  Let  us  briefly  inquire  then,  in  the 
present  instance,  wherein  the  essence  of  the  error  here 
exposed  consisted,  and  what  analogous  forms  of  error 
may  exist  among  ourselves. 

That  the  old  dispensation,  while  it  lasted,  was  en- 
titled to  respect  as  a  divine  institution,  if  it  needed 
any  proof,  might  be  established,  both  by  the  ])reccpt 
and  example  of  our  Saviour.  Even  after  it  was  vir- 
tually abrogated  by  the  death  and  resurrection  and 
ascension  of  our  Lord  and  by  the  advent  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  apostles,  acting  by  divine  direction,  still 
paid  a  certain  tribute  of  respect  to  the  framework  of 


Q2  SERMONS. 

the  old  economy,  until  it  was  forever  shaken  down 
and  scattered  bj  a  great  convulsion.  The  error  now 
in  question,  therefore,  did  not  lie  in  any  undue  def- 
erence to  the  Law  as  a  temporary  system,  but  in 
making  it  the  standard  and  the  rule  of  God's  most 
gracious  dispensations  under  an  entirely  different  state 
of  things;  and  more  particularly  in  supposing,  that 
access  to  the  Messiah's  kingdom  was  to  be  as  cir- 
cuitous and  slow  and  ceremonious,  as  the  approach  of 
Gentile  converts  to  the  altar  and  the  oracle  of  God 
had  been  for  ages,  when,  in  fact,  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  had  already  begun  to  suffer  violence,  and  the 
violent  were  actually  taking  it  by  force. 

Into  this  identical  mistake  there  is,  of  course,  no 
danger  of  our  falling.  The  change  of  circumstances 
already  spoken  of,  has  rendered  it  impossible.  But 
may  not  a  kindred  error,  and  one  equally  pernicious, 
be  committed  now?  God  has  appointed  certain 
means  to  be  assiduously  used  for  the  extension  of  the 
church  and  the  conversion  of  the  world.  The  obliga- 
tion to  employ  these  means  is  imperative,  and  can- 
not be  dispensed  with.  The  very  fact  of  their  divine 
authority  entitles  us  to  look  for  the  most  salutary 
effects  from  their  constant  and  faithful  application. 
We  cannot  err,  therefore,  by  excess  in  the  employ- 
ment of  these  means.  But  may  we  not  err  by  limiting 
the  Holy  One  himself  to  means — even  those  which  he 
has  sanctioned  and  blessed?  May  we  not  err  by  sup- 
posing, that  because  it  is  our  duty  to  make  constant, 
prayerful,  and  believing  use  of  these  means,  and  to 
watch  for  their  effect,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  ex- 
pected— even  from  the  free  smd  sovereign  operation  of 


MATTHEW  11,  12.  63 

divine  grace  ?  In  other  words,  by  looking  too  much, 
or,  at  least,  too  exclusively,  at  the  ordinary  results  of 
ordinary  means,  may  we  not  cease  to  hope  for  those 
extraordinary  gifts,  with  wliich  the  Lord  is  sometimes 
pleased,  as  it  were,  to  reward  the  faithful  use  of  the 
stated  and  appointed  means  of  grace  ? 

There  is  no  doubt  an  opposite  eiTor,  into  which  we 
are  no  less  prone  to  fall,  and  from  which  the  Church 
has  suflered.  incalculable  loss  and.  damage.  Tliis  is 
the  error  of  expecting  all  from  God's  extraordinary 
gifts,  to  the  exclusion  of  those  stated  means  which  he 
has  ordained,  and  on.  which  he  has  not  only  promised 
but  bestowed  a  blessing.  This  error,  pushed  to  an 
extreme,  becomes  fanaticism,  and.  is  the  fruitful  source 
of  doctrinal  corruptions,  practical  abuses,  spiritual 
pride,  and.  all  the  other  evils  springing  from  a  violent 
excitement  followed  by  reaction  towards  the  opposite 
extreme  of  lethargy  and  deadness.  The  error  which 
produces  all  these  evils,  does  not  merely  lie  in  the 
denial  or  oblivion  of  the  fact  that  God's  extraordinary 
blessings  must,  from  their  very  nature,  be  occasional, 
but  also  in  denying  or  forgetting  that  extraordinary 
gifts  are,  according  to  a  law  of  God's  most  gracious 
dispensations,  not  bestowed  at  random,  but  conferred 
as  blessings  on  the  faithful  use  of  ordinary  means. 

To  expect  an  extraordinary  harvest,  without  using 
the  means  necessary  to  secure  an  ordinary  one,  would 
be  scarcely  more  absurd  than  ta  concentrate  all  our 
hopes  and  wishes  on  extraordinary  spiritual  visita- 
tions, while  we  wilfully  or  negligently  slight  the  stated 
and  invariable  means  of  doing  and  obtaining  good, 
on  which  God  sometimes  sets  the  seal  of  his  approval 


64 


SERMONS. 


by  remarkable  outpourings  of  his  spirit.  As  tlie 
manna  in  the  wilderness  did  not  take  the  place  of 
ordinary  food,  but  supplied  its  deficiencies,  and  fur- 
nished special  proofs  of  the  divine  presence  and  favour 
to  his  people;  so  the  greatest  spiritual  gifts  to  the 
Church  now,  are  not  intended  to  supplant  the  use  of 
ordinary  means,  but  rather  to  encourage  it  by  signs 
of  the  divine  approbation;  and  the  hope  of  such  ex- 
traordinary gifts  is  never  better  founded  than  at  those 
times  when,  instead  of  intermitting  ordinary  duties, 
we  perform  them  with  redoubled  zeal. 

But  no  extreme  of  judgment  or  of  practice  is  to 
be  corrected  by  another.  While  we  shim  the  error 
of  relying  on  extraordinary  gifts  as  a  substitute  for 
ordinary  duties,  or  as  an  apology  for  slighting  them, 
let  us  not  lose  sight  of  such  extraordinary  gifts  alto- 
gether, or  regard  them  as  impossible  and  hopeless,  or 
as  inconsistent  with  the  faithful  use  of  ordinary 
means.  By  so  doing,  we  gratuitously  throw  away 
one  of  the  most  powerful  incitements  to  duty,  and 
most  efficacious  stimulants  to  hope  and  zeal.  Noth- 
ing is  better  suited  to  invigorate  habitual  exertion 
than  a  firm  belief  that  God  bestows  his  most  invalu- 
able and  special  gifts  on  such  as  diligently  seek  for 
those  of  a  more  ordinary  nature.  To  relinquish  this 
belief  and  hope,  is  to  cut  the  sinews  of  our  spiritual 
streno-th  even  in  relation  to  our  ordinary  duties.  At 
the  same  time,  this  extreme  of  error  and  misconduct 
tends  more  directly  to  diminish  the  amount  of  good 
which  we  might  otherwise  accomplish.  While  it  still 
remains  indisputably  true,  that  the  extension  of  the 
Chruch  and  the  conversion  of  the  world  are  suspended, 


MATTHEW  11,  12.  65 

under  God,  upon  the  constant  use  of  ordinary  means 
for  the  neglect  of  which  nothing  can  compensate  or 
atone;  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  aggregate  result 
of  these  means  would  be  comparatively  small,  without 
occasional  accessions  of  divine  and  human  strength, 
making  good,  as  it  were  by  a  single  movement,  the 
arrears  of  many  years;  and  giving  a  new  impulse  to 
those  means  which,  though  they  cannot  be  dispensed 
with,  are  too  apt,  in  human  hands,  to  grow  inert  and 
inefficient,  unless  frequently  renewed  and  set  in  mo- 
tion by  a  special  divine  influence.  In  other  words, 
and  in  accordance  with  the  figurative  language  of  the 
text,  although  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  even  now,  as 
when  it  was  first  visibly  erected  upon  earth,  must 
grow  by  constant  gradual  accession,  and  although,  if 
this  mode  of  increase  should  fail,  its  place  could  be 
supplied  by  nothing  else,  yet  even  this  increase  is 
stimulated,  and  the  aggregate  result  indefinitely  mul- 
tiplied, by  those  occasional  seasons  of  awakening  and 
commotion,  when  "the kingdom  of  heaven  sufiercth 
violence,  and  the  violent  take  it  by  force." 

I  rejoice  to  know  that  I  address  some,  I  trust 
many,  to  whom  the  extension  of  this  kingdom  is  a 
subject  of  intense  desire  and  fervent  prayer.  But  do 
the  hopes  of  such  bear  due  proportion  to  their  con- 
scientious labours  and  their  zeal  for  God?  Are  we 
not,  Christian  brethren,  too  prone  to  despondency,  as 
well  as  to  presumption  and  security  ;  extremes  which 
are  continually  found  in  close  proximity,  not  only 
among  members  of  the  same  connnunity,  but  in  the 
vacillating,  varying  experience  of  one  and  the  same 
person  ?    And  may  not  one  of  these  extremes  at  least, 


QQ  SERMONS. 

arise  from  the  mistake  wliicli  we  have  been  consider- 
ing, the  mistaken  notion  that  becanse  Christ's  kingdom 
mnst  be  built  np  by  a  slow  and  sure  increase,  there 
is  no  such  thing  to  be  expected  as  a  general  and 
powerful  commotion  of  men's  minds,  producing  the 
same  result  upon  a  larger  scale  and  in  a  shorter  time; 
that  because  that  vast  reservoir  of  God's  grace  and 
man's  happiness  is  fed  by  rivulets  and  drops  in  or- 
dinary times,  there  is  no  such  thing  to  be  expected  as 
the  sight  of  an  irresistible  current  impetuously  setting 
in  the  same  direction  ;  that  because  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  see  men  gained  over,  one  by  one,  from  the 
service  of  Satan  and  the  world  to  that  of  God,  there 
is  no  such  thing  to  be  expected  in  our  days  as  that  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  suifering  violence,  and  the 
violent  taking  it  by  force  ?  Oh,  let  us  see  to  it,  that 
even  our  attachment  to  the  stated  ordinary  means  of 
grace,  and  our  well-founded  fears  of  spurious  and  fanat- 
ical excitements,  do  not  unfit  us  for  the  reception  of 
extraordinary  mercies,  and  betray  us,  for  a  time  at 
least,  into  unreasonable  trust  in  accustomed  forms 
and  methods,  and  a  groundless  dread  of  irregularity 
and  insubordination,  simply  because  in  this  day,  as 
in  that  day,  "  the  kingdom  of  heaven  suffereth  vio- 
lence, and  the  violent  take  it  by  force." 

Is  there  not  still  a  class  to  whom  I  may,  without 
ofi'ence,  address  myself  in  terms  of  solemn  warning 
and  entreaty,  in  application  of  the  subject  which  has 
been  before  us  ?  I  mean  such  as  have  long  enjoyed 
the  stated  dispensation  of  God's  word,  but  as  yet  seem 
not  to  have  experienced  its  power.  To  such  I  venture 
to  address  myself  directly,  and  to  put  the  question, 


MATTHEW  11,  12.  Q^ 

Are  you  not,  perhaps  unconsciously,  relying  on  tliis 
passive  enjoyment  of  religious  privileges  as  a  means 
of  safety,  independent  of  all  serious  reflection  or  ex- 
ertion on  your  own  part  ?  Such  a  state  of  mind  may 
be  produced  by  a  misappreliension  or  abuse  of  the 
doctrines  which  you  have  ever  been  faithfully  taught, 
of  God's  sovereignty  and  man's  dependence.  But 
this  only  makes  your  error  more  alarming,  and  your 
danger  more  imminent.  God  is  indeed  the  only 
Saviour,  the  alpha  and  omega  of  our  hopes,  the 
author  and  the  finisher  of  our  salvation ;  but  he  does  not 
save  men  in  their  sleep,  or  carry  them  to  heaven  stu- 
pefied in  deathlike  lethargy.  If  he  means  to  save  you, 
be  assured  he  will  awaken  you.  However  various 
the  degrees  and  forms  of  that  alarm  which  enters  into 
all  evangelical  repentance,  or  prepares  the  way  for  it, 
you  must  experience  some  disturbance  of  your  long 
and  deep  sleep  of  security.  If  the  absence  of  any 
such  emotion  is  the  fault  of  God  himself,  derive  Avhat 
consolation  you  find  possible  from  this  blasphemous 
apology;  but  do  not  forget  that  after  all,  whatever  be 
the  cause,  and  wherever  the  blame  lies,  your  deep 
sleep  must  be  broken  or  you  never  will  be  saved. 
"With  all  allowance  for  the  freedom  and  variety  of 
God's  dispensations  towards  the  souls  of  men,  and  for 
the  difference  produced  by  constitution,  education, 
and  the  previous  mode  of  life,  it  is  still  true  that  you 
cannot  doze  or  dream  yourself  into  salvation  ;  that  in 
some  sense,  and  to  some  extent,  a  vehement  exertion 
is  required  and  produced  in  every  soul  to  which  God 
has  purposes  of  mercy;  and  that  this  is  not  peculiar  to 
one  age  or  country,  but  characteristic  of  God's  saving 


68  SEEM0J7S. 

methods  in  all  times  and  places.  So  that  in  a  certain 
sense  it  may  still  be  triilj  and  emphatically  said  that 
"  from  the  days  of  John  the  Baptist  until  now,  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  suffereth  violence,  and  the  violent 
take  it  by  force." 


lY. 


Isaiah  55,  1. — Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  3-e  to  the  waters, 
and  he  that  hath  no  money,  come  ye,  buy  and  eat:  yea,  come,  buy 
wine  and  milk,  without  money  and  without  price. 

As  Christ  came  to  seek  and  to  save  tliat  wliicli 
was  lost,  liis  servants  must  do  likewise.  Their  work, 
like  their  Master's,  is  to  save  lost  souls.  Thej  cannot 
save,  like  him,  by  their  own  power  or  merit.  But  as 
instruments  in  his  hands  they  may  be  the  means  of 
saving.  !Not  the  preacher  only,  but  the  humblest 
Christian  in  his  little  sphere,  is  bound,  in  some  way, 
and  in  some  degree,  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  is 
lost.  With  this  commission  we  are  all  sent  forth. 
We  are  not  sent  to  a  world  which  is  merely  in  danger 
of  being  lost.  It  is  lost.  It  is  condemned  already. 
The  gospel  is  not  merely  a  method  of  prevention,  but 
of  cure.  Christ  came  to  save  that  which  was  lost  al- 
ready, and  to  seek  it,  in  order  that  it  might  be  saved, 
and  we,  as  his  instruments,  arc  bound  to  seek  the  lost 
that  we  may  save  them.  We  are  not  to  keep  back  the 
salvation  of  the  gospel  till  men  seek  it  for  themselves. 
We  must  offer  it  to  them.  We  must  press  it  upon  them. 
We  must  not  only  spread  the  feast,  but  bid  men  to  it. 


70  SERMONS. 

It  is  our  business  to  invite  men  to  tlie  Saviour.  We 
must  therefore  learn  tlie  art  of  invitation.  And  we 
cannot  learn  it  better  than  from  God's  example.  Tlie 
Bible  is  full  of  invitations,  varied  in  form,  but  alike  in 
principle,  proceeding  from  the  same  source,  addressed 
to  the  same  objects,  and  conveying  the  same  offer. 
Let  these  invitations  be  the  models  of  our  own,  and 
let  us,  upon  this  occasion,  take  a  lesson  from  the  one 
before  us,  which  is  among  the  most  earnest,  free,  im 
portunate,  and  touching  in  the  "Word  of  God. 

In  order  to  appreciate  and  understand  it,  let  us 
look  back  for  a  moment  to  what  goes  before.  After 
various  partial  exhibitions  of  the  Saviour  as  a  prophet 
or  divine  teacher,  he  is  fully  set  before  us  in  the  fifty- 
-thii-d  chapter  as  a  priest  and  sacrifice,  who  bore  our 
griefs  and  carried  our  sorrows,  who  was  wounded  for 
our  transgressions  and  bruised  for  our  iniquities,  upon 
whom  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  fell,  and  by 
whose  stripes  we  are  healed,  upon  whom  the  Lord 
laid  the  iniquities  of  us  all,  who  was  stricken  for  the 
transgressions  of  his  people,  who  made  his  soul  an 
offering  for  sin,  who  justified  many  by  bearing  their 
iniquities,  who  poured  out  his  soul  unto  death  and 
was  numbered  with  the  transgi'essors,  who  bare  the 
sins  of  many  and  made  intercession  for  the  transgres- 
sors. These  strong  expressions,  which  are  all  coll- 
ected from  that  one  short  chapter,  leave  no  doubt 
as  to  its  subject.  The  utmost  ingenuity  of  Jews 
and  Gentiles  has  been  bafiied  in  the  effort  to  invent 
another. 

Here,  then,  the  foundation  of  the  sinner's  hope  is 
laid,  the  only  one  that  can  be  laid,  "  for  there  is  no 


. 


ISAIAH  65,  1.  71 

other  name  given  nnder  lieaven  among  men  whereby 
"we  must  be  saved."  In  the  fifty -fourth  chapter,  the 
Church  is  assured  that  notwithstanding  her  afflictions, 
she  shall  taste  the  fruit  of  this  great  expiation.  She 
is  exhorted  to  prepare  for  an  immense  accession ;  to 
enlarge  the  place  of  her  tent,  and  stretch  forth  tlie 
curtain  of  her  habitations,  to  lengthen  her  cords  and 
strengthen  her  stakes.  She  is  told  that  her  seed  shall 
inherit  the  Gentiles,  that  although  her  national  pi'e- 
erainence  shall  cease,  her  spiritual  greatness  shall  be 
vastly  magnified  by  being  rendered  co-extensive  with 
the  earth ;  that  her  children  shall  be  taught  of  the 
Lord,  and  great  shall  be  the  j)eace  of  her  children ; 
that  no  weapon  formed  against  her  shall  prosper,  and 
that  every  tongue  which  rises  against  her  shall  be 
condemned.  "This  is  the  heritage  of  the  servants  of 
the  Lord,  and  their  righteousness  is  of  me,  saitli  the 
Lord." 

Having  thus  assured  the  Church  of  her  enlarge- 
ment and  prosperity,  the  prophet  takes  a  wider  range ; 
he  looks  towards  those  from  among  whom  this  acces- 
sion to  the  Church  is  to  be  gathered ;  he  remembers 
the  mixed  multitude  of  lost  men  who  are  wandering 
in  the  wilderness,  aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of 
Israel,  and  strangers  from  the  covenants  of  promise. 
He  sees  them  fainting  there  with  spiritual  thirst,  a 
sense  of  guilt,  an  undefined,  uneasy  longing  after 
something  not  possessed ;  something  as  necesary  to 
refresh  the  soul  as  water  to  the  panting  hart,  or  to 
the  gasping  Arab  in  the  desert.  He  sees  them  not 
only  parched  with  thirst,  but  gnawed  by  hunger : 
nature  craves  something  to  support  as  well  as  to  re- 


Y2  SERMONS. 

fresli  her,  and  in  obedience  to  lier  call,  lie  sees  them 
labouring  -^ith  desperate  exertion  to  dig  wp  some  nu- 
tritious root,  or  some  buried  fragment  from  the  burn- 
ins;  sand.  He  sees  them  wadintr  throu2:li  that  soil  of 
fire  to  some  distant  shrub  which  holds  out  the  last 
dying  hope  of  food,  and  as  they  reach  it,  he  beholds 
them  turn  away  from  its  barren  stalk  and  withered 
leaves,  to  lie  down  in  despair,  whije  others  scarcely 
less  exhausted,  follow  in  the  same  vain  search. 

Such  scenes  are  not  imcommon  in  the  deserts  of 
the  east,  where  men  are  often  found  to  choose  be- 
tween starvation  and  the  use  of  food  from  which 
nature  even  in  extremity  revolts,  while  the  agony  of 
thirst  is  rendered  ten  times  more  acute  by  the  deceit- 
ful water  of  the  desert  which  becomes  hot  sand  upon 
the  traveller's  approach.  And  yet  all  this  is  nothing 
more  than  a  faint  image  of  the  desert  in  which 
men  are  born,  and  where  they  wander  till  reclaimed 
by  God  ;  a  desert  which  is  not  without  its  hot 
sands  and  its  leafless  shrubs,  its  weariness,  its  bit- 
ter pangs,  its  thirst,  its  famine,  rendered  more  tor- 
menting by  the  cruel  mockery  of  its  illusions.  This 
is  the  picture  which  the  world  presents  to  every  eye 
from  which  the  scales  have  fallen.  This  is  the  picture 
which  the  prophet  seems  to  have  beheld  in  vision 
when  he  stood  upon  the  walls  of  Zion,  and  looked  far 
ofl'  into  the  recesses  of  that  desert  stretching  all 
around  her,  out  of  which  he  knew  that  some  were  to 
be  gathered  into  Zion,  and  at  which  he  therefore 
gazes  with  a  yearning  pity ;  not  his  own  merely, 
but  the  pity  of  that  God  whose  Spirit  gave  him  utter- 
ance. 


ISAIAH  55,  1.  73 

For  as  lie  looks  he  speaks,  lie  cries  aloud,  as  if  to 
persons  at  a  distance.  He  no  longer  addresses  him- 
self merely  to  the  church.  His  language  is  as  wide 
and  comprehensive  as  the  sins  and  wants  of  suffering 
humanity.  It  is  to  men  as  men  that  he  appeals, 
"  Unto  you,  O  men,  I  call,  and  my  voice  is  to  the 
sons  of  man,"  without  distinction  or  exception.  "  Ho, 
every  one  that  thirsteth ! "  He  does  not  say  every 
child  of  Israel.  He  does  not  say  every  godly  prose- 
lyte. He  does  not  say  every  upright,  blameless  man. 
He  does  not  even  say  every  one  who  repents,  or 
every  one  who  believes,  but  every  one  who  thirsts. 
He  presupposes  nothing  but  a  sense  of  need  ;  no 
knowledge,  but  the  consciousness  of  misery  and  help- 
lessness ;  not  even  a  knowledge  of  the  method  of  sal- 
vation. Here  then  it  is  thus  that  God  begins  his 
invitations.  He  appeals  to  that  uneasy  sense  of 
something  needed,  what  or  why  the  sinner  knows 
not ;  to  the  spiritual  thirst  by  wliich  his  soul  is 
parched,  he  knows  not  how.  "Where  this  exists,  no 
otlier  qualification  is  demanded. 

Tliat  so  few  accept  of  it  is  not  owing  to  the  want 
of  freeness  in  the  offer,  nor  to  the  want  of  merit  in 
those  whom  it  is  made  to.  But  they  will  not  hear. 
The  voice  cries  in  the  wilderness,  but  those  to  whom 
it  is  addressed  refuse  to  hear.  Or  if  they  listen,  it  is 
so  incredulously  that  they  hear  in  vain.  If  their  at- 
tention could  be  fixed  but  for  a  moment,  they  would 
urely  hear  in  earnest.  When  the  starved  and  pant- 
ing pilgrim,  as  he  lies  extended  in  the  desert,  hears  a 
distant  cry,  exhaustion  may  have  stupefied  him  so 
that  he  regards  it  not.     Or  if  the  sound  arouses  him, 

VOL.  11. — 4 


Y4  SERMONS. 

he  may  mistake  it  for  tlie  cry  of  the  wild  beast,  or 
the  voice  of  other  sufferers  like  himself.  But  if  these 
words  distinctly  fall  upon  his  ear,  "  Ho,  every  one  that 
thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters,"  unless  despair  has 
made  him  utterly  incredulous,  he  must  be  startled 
and  aroused.  And  even  though  he  deem  the  tidings 
too  good  to  be  true,  he  will  at  least  put  forth  one 
effort  more  to  reach  the  spot  from  which  the  sound 
comes. 

But,  alas !  in  the  spiritual  desert  it  is  harder  to  gain 
the  ear  of  those  who  are  dying  with  thirst,  even  by 
urgent  calls  to  drink  and  live.  They  are  the  subjects 
of  pei-petual  illusion.  Tliey  continue  still  to  hope 
for  quick  relief  from  some  phantasma,  some  deceitful 
sight  or  sound,  in  chase  of  which  they  will  not  listen 
to  the  only  voice  which  offers  them  substantial  relief. 
Think  how  constantly  the  offers  of  the  gospel  are  re- 
iterated in  the  ears  of  thousands  who  are  really 
athirst,  whose  life  is  spent  in  seeking  to  allay  that 
inward  thirst  by  copious  draughts  of  knowledge, 
fame,  or  pleasure,  or  by  filling  their  parched  mouths 
witli  the  burning  sand  of  this  world's  gains.  They 
are  partly  conscious  of  a  void  within  them  which  the 
world  can  never  fill,  and  yet  the  only  voice  of  invita- 
tion which  they  will  not  hear  is  that  of  God  crying, 
"  Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters." 
The  only  stream  at  which  they  will  not  try  to  slake 
their  thirst  is  the  river  of  the  water  of  life.  "What 
shall  be  done  then  ?  Shall  the  offer  be  suspended  ? 
Shall  the  voice  of  invitation  be  less  loud  and  urgent  ? 
No,  let  those  who  utter  it  cry  aloud  and  spare  not. 
Let  no  deluded  soul  be  lost,  because  the  calls  of  sal- 


ISAIAH  55,  1.  7g 

vation  were  too  faint  and  few  f  It  is  true  tlie  cry  will 
never  ])e  obeyed,  nor  even  listened  to  until  the  ear  is 
sujDernatu rally  opened.  Till  then,  the  sinner  will  he 
deaf  as  the  adder  to  the  voice  of  tlie  charmer  charm- 
ing never  so  wisely.  And  the  Christian's  consolation 
under  all  discouragement  from  man's  unwillingnesf 
to  hear  is  this,  that  the  call  is  God's  call,  and  thaf 
when  he  pleases,  he  can  render  it  effectual. 

But  while  we  draw  from  this  consideration  all  the 
comfort  which  it  is  adapted  to  afford,  let  it  not  be 
made  a  pretext  for  unfaithfulness  or  negligence  in 
doing  our  part  as  the  messengers  of  Christ.  While 
it  is  certain  that  no  soul  will  perish  which  does  not 
abundantly  deserve  to  die;  and  on  the  other  hand 
that  none  whom  God  elects  to  everlasting  life  will  fail 
to  hear  the  voice  which  calls  them  to  the  fountain  of 
salvation;  it  is  also  certain  that  the  loss  of  some  sin- 
ners will  bring  aggravated  guilt  upon  the  souls  of 
those  who  should  have  called  them  and  who  did  not; 
or  who  called  so  faintly  that  it  never  reached  the  ears 
of  those  to  w^hom  the  word  was  sent,  or  if  it  reached, 
their  cars,  it  never  touched  their  hearts,  so  calmly 
and  so  coldly  was  the  invitation  uttered. 

Let  us  ask  ourselves  this  question :  Arc  the  calls 
and  invitations  of  the  gospel,  at  this  moment,  uttered 
loud  enough?  Are  there  voices  enough  joining  in  the 
cry,  to  make  it  audible  ?  Is  it  heard  in  the  desert  ? 
Is  it  heard  in  those  dark  places  of  the  earth  wliich  are 
full  of  the  habitations  of  cruelty  ?  Is  our  voice  heard 
there,  tlirough  the  messengers  wdiom  we  have  sent? 
Is  it  lieard  at  home  ?  Even  among  ourselves  is  the 
cry  as  loud  and  piercing  as  it  ought  to  be  ?     Even 


76  SERMONS. 

where  purity  of  doctrine  is  maintained,  and  wliero 
the  evidence  of  practical  religion  does  exist,  may  there 
not  be  a  want  of  earnestness  and  fervour  in  proclaim- 
ing that  which  is  really  believed?  May  not  the 
very  dread  of  spurious  excitement,  which  the  church 
has  seen  abundant  cause  to  feel,  be  j)nshed  so  far  as 
to  produce  a  coldness  and  apj^earance  of  indifference 
in  publishing  the  offers  of  the  gospel,  which  amounts, 
in  practical  effect,  almost  to  a  denial  of  the  very 
truths  affirmed,  and  a  retracting  of  the  invitations 
offered  ?  It  is  a  question  to  be  seriously  pondered, 
whether  much  of  the  indifference  with  which  the  in- 
vitations of  the  gospel  are  received,  does  not  arise 
from  the  apparent  absence  of  all  lively  feeling  on  the 
part  of  those  who  make  them.  And  this,  not  only  in 
relation  to  the  public  formal  preaching  of  the  Avord, 
but  also  in  reference  to  those  private  occasions  upon 
which  the  individual  Christian  may  be  called  to  say 
to  those  who  hear  his  voice,  "  Ho,  every  one  that 
thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters  !  "  Let  the  invita- 
■  tions  which  we  offer  in  the  name  of  Christ,  be,  like  his 
own,  earnest  and  free,  addressed  to  all  who  feel  the 
need  of  them.  "  Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come 
ye  to  the  waters !  " 

The  figures  here  used  need  but  little  explanation, 
and  that  little  only  to  secure  a  just  discrimination  be- 
tween things  which  differ.  The  same  divine  grace  is  ex- 
hibited under  three  distinct  aspects;  water  refreshes, 
milk  nourishes,  wine  cheers.  To  the  thirsty  soul  the 
prophet  offers  Avater,  to  the  famished  milk,  to  the  de- 
spondent wine.  The  same  grace  which  relieves 
our    spiritual   lassitude    and   weariness   of   life,   re- 


ISAIAH  55,  1.  77 

moves  the  cause  of  these  distressing  symptoms,  by 
supplying  the  materials  of  spiritual  strength,  feed- 
ing the  soul  with  knowledge — not  only  religious  but 
experimental  knowledge — and  the  same  grace  which 
thus  strengthens,  while  it  gives  repose,  goes  further, 
and  produces  holy  joy.  To  all  this  the  sinner  is  in- 
vited in  the  gospel.  Is  he  thirsty  ?  Is  he  conscious 
of  a  want  within  him  which  must  be  supplied  before 
he  can  enjoy  repose,  and  does  he  find  that  this  vague 
feeling  of  deficiency  is  more  distressing,  the  more  un- 
defined it  is?  And  does  this  exhaust  and  as  it  were 
dry  up  the  very  fountains  of  his  life,  with  an  eftect 
equivalent  to  that  of  parching  thirst,  until  his  so\il  is 
ready  to  cry  out,  My  moisture  is  turned  into  the 
drought  of  summ.er  ?  Even  amidst  the  press  of  secu- 
lar employments  and  the  whirl  of  frantic  gaiety,  this 
thirst  of  spirit  has  been  often  felt ;  nay,  it  has  been 
itself  the  means  of  plunging  men  in  business  or  in 
pleasure,  in  the  hope  of  extinguishing  that  fever  in 
the  veins  which  will  not  let  them  rest.  But  in  vain 
do  they  drink  at  the  polluted  springs  of  pleasure  and 
the  broken  cisterns  of  man's  wisdom ;  the  fire  still 
rasres — it  consumes  and  exhausts  them  more  and 
more,  until  at  last,  the  excitement  of  unsatisfied  de- 
sire subsides  into  a  desperate  apathy,  beneath  which 
smoulder  the  remains  of  half-quenched  passions, 
which,  if  once  rekindled,  will  burn  unto  the  lowest 
hell. 

Society  is  full  of  those  whose  hearts  have  thus  been 
scorched  and  blasted  in  the  vain  attempt  to  satisfy  a 
craving  soul  with  any  thing  but  God.  Tlie  sense  of 
want  remains,  but  it  no  longer  stimulates  to  action; 


Y8  SERMONS. 

it  is^  ike  the  tliirst  of  those  who  have  exhausted  nature 
in  tae  eftort  to  find  water  in  the  desert,  and  have 
fallen  down  to  die.  The  thirst  which  they  before 
felt,  is  now  but  one  among;  a  multitude  of  symptoms 
which  premonish  speedy  death.  Perhaps  you  know 
such.  If  you  do  not,  you  at  least  know  those  whose 
minds  are  restless  under  disapj)ointment,  and  a  sense 
of  insufficiency  in  every  thing  which  this  world  offers 
to  allay  their  inward  thirst.  If  you  know  such,  and 
would  act  the  part  of  Christians  towards  them,  do  not 
foster  their  delusive  hope  of  finding  yet  among  the 
untried  springs  and  cisterns  of  the  world,  what  they 
have  thus  far  sought  in  vain;  but  taking  your  stand 
by  the  fountain  of  life  which  Christ  has  opened,  cry 
to  them  in  a  voice  too  loud  and  piercing  to  be  heard 
without  attention,  "  Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth, 
come  ye  to  the  waters !  "  Here  bathe  those  burning 
brows  and  steep  those  parched  lips,  and  slake  that 
never-dying  thirst  which  has  become  inseparable 
from  your  very  being. 

There  are  few  scenes  in  fiction  or  in  real  life 
better  suited  to  create  a  vivid  impression  of  re- 
freshment and  relief,  than  those  descriptions  given 
by  some  travellers  in  the  great  Sahara,  of  the 
finding  of  a  well,  after  an  interval  of  terrible  privation. 
The  delirious  joy,  the  frantic  struggle  for  precedence, 
the  impetuous  delight  with  which  the  panting  sufferer 
plunges  his  head  into  the  long-sought  element — the 
very  picture  brings  refreshment  with  it ;  but  alas  !  our 
sympathies  are  few  and  faint  with  spiritual  objects, 
or  we  certainly  should  find  what  I  have  just  described 
an  imperfect  emblem  of  the  icw  life  breathed  into  the 


ISAIAH  55,  1.  79 

sonl,  when  plunged  into  the  fountain  opened  for  sin 
and  uncleanness,  first,  to  be  cleansed,  and  then,  when 
all  impurity  has  passed  away,  to  drink.  Ah,  my 
hearers,  is  it  possible  for  those  who  have  once  tasted 
of  those  waters,  to  forget  them  ?  "  Will  a  man  leave 
the  snow  of  Lebanon,  or  shall  the  cold  flowing  waters 
be  forsaken  ?  "  Yes,  such  a  thing  is  possible  ;  for  if  it_ 
were  not,  we  should  not  only  come  more  constantly 
ourselves  to  this  exhaustless  fountain,  but  should  cry 
more  frequently  to  all  them  that  pass  by,  "  Ho,  every 
one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters  ! " 

It  is  related  by  one  who  had  experienced  the  hor- 
rors of  the  great  African  desert,  that  the  thirst  which 
had  absorbed  all  other  feelings  while  it  raged,  was  no 
sooner  slaked,  than  the  feeling  of  hunger  was  revived 
in  tenfold  violence  ;  and  I  scruple  not  to  spiritualize 
this  incident  in  illustration  of  the  prophet's  language. 
The  sensation  of  relief  from  undefined  anxiety  or  from 
a  positive  dread  of  divine  wrath,  however  exquisite, 
is  not  enough  to  satisfy  the  soul.  Tlie  more  it  re- 
ceives, the  more  it  feels  its  own  deficiencies  :  and 
Avhen  its  fjiculties  have  been  revived  by  the  assurance 
of  forgiveness,  it  becomes  aware  of  its  own  ignorance, 
and  of  those  chasms  which  can  only  be  filled  with 
knowledge  of  the  truth.  This  is  the  sense  of  spiritual 
hunger  which  succeeds  the  allaying  of  spiritual  thirst. 
The  soul,  having  been  refreshed,  must  now  be  fed. 
The  cooling,  cleansing  projjerties  of  water  cannot  re- 
pair the  decaying  strength.  There  must  be  nutri- 
ment, suited  to  the  condition  of  the  soul.  And  it  is 
furnislied.  Here  is  milk  as  well  as  water.  We  are 
called,  not  only  to  refreshment  but  to  nourishment. 


80  SERMONS 

The  voice  cries,  not  only  "  Come  ye  to  the  waters," 
but  "  Come  ye,  buy  and  eat."  If  refreshment  only  be 
supplied,  the  soul,  though  freed  from  thirst,  will  die 
of  hunger.  Do  you  know  any  soul  in  this  state,  fresh 
from  the  laver  of  regeneration  and  rejoicing  in  its 
change  ?  Let  us  all  hope  to  know  many  such.  And 
when  we  do,  or  if  we  know  them  now,  let  us  see  to  it 
that  the  first  relief  obtained  from  the  waters  of  this 
fountain  be  succeeded  by  instruction — by  instruction 
suited  to  the  wants  of  babes  in  Christ — the  sincere 
milk  of  the  word.  It  may  never  be  known,  at  least 
to  us,  in  time  or  in  eternity,  how  much  of  the  fanati- 
cal abuses  which  have  followed  what  appeared  to  be 
instances  of  genuine  conversion,  has  arisen  from  neg- 
lect, or  error  in  this  very  juncture.  The  soul  has 
been  refreshed,  but  it  has  not  been  fed,  and  inanition 
has  excited  it  more  fatally  than  it  could  have  been 
excited  by  excess. 

Has  it  not  been  a  matter  of  familiar  observation 
that  the  same  men  who  are  most  successful  in  alarm- 
ing sinners,  are  not  alwavs  most  successful  in  the 
training  of  new  converts  or  the  edification  of  estab- 
lished saints  ?  And  has  not  this  diversity  of  gifts  been 
made  a  reason  for  infringing  on  the  order  of  God's 
house,  and  multiplying  orders  in  the  ministry  ?  They 
who  pursue  this  course  forget,  that  while  the  prophet 
invites  every  one  that  thirsteth  tc  the  waters,  he  in- 
vites them  at  the  same  time  to  paitake  of  milk  and 
wine — of  milk  to  nourish,  and  of  wine  to  cheer.  The 
supply  of  nature's  cravings,  though  the  first  thing  in 
order  and  necessity,  is  not  the  last.  It  is  not  all.  The 
man  must  not  only  be  continued  in  existence — his  ex- 


ISAIAH  55,  1.  gl 

ietence  must  be  lifippy  ;  it  is  for  happiness  that  he 
desires  to  live,  and  when  that  which  is  necessary 
even  to  existence  is  supplied,  he  is  not  satisfied,  he 
must  have  more  ;  as  the  feeling  of  thirst  gives  way  to 
that  of  lumger,  so  the  sense  of  hunger  yields  to  the 
desire  of  enjoyment.  To  be  satisfied  with  mere  life, 
and  with  that  by  which  it  is  supported,  would  be 
brutal.  The  nobler  instincts  of  our  nature  point  to 
something  for  which  life  is  worth  possessing,  and  the 
very  satisfaction  of  inferior  necessities,  renders  those 
which  are  higher  more  perceptible  and  urgent.  As 
the  relief  of  doubt  and  dread  is  not  enough  without 
the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  so  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth  is  not  enough  unless  it  yields  enjoyment.  And 
it  does,  if  rightly  used.  The  gospel  ofiers  wine,  as 
well  as  milk,  and  water.  Come  and  drink,  not  of 
one,  but  of  all,  of  all  together.  Come  and  slake  your 
thirst,  appease  your  hunger,  and  dispel  your  cares ; 
not  by  difl'ercnt  means,  but  by  the  same  abundant, 
all-sutficient  grace.  God  makes  provision,  not  for  one 
want  merely,  but  for  all.  If  you  are  cooled,  and  not 
fed — if  3'ou  are  fed,  and  not  exhilarated,  it  is  not  his 
fault,  but  yours  ;  his  call  is  not  to  this  or  that  exclu- 
sively, but  "Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to 
the  waters,  and  he  that  hath  no  mone^'',  come  ye,  buy 
and  eat.  Yea  come,  buy  wine  and  milk,  without  money 
and  without  price  !  " 

I  have  already  directed  your  attention  to  the  fiict, 
that  thirst  is  the  only  qualification  required  of  those 
who  are  invited  to  the  fountain.  'No  merit,  no  pur- 
chase money ;  nay,  the  want  of  this  may  be  consid- 
ered as  a  negative  condition.     Merit  and  money  are 

VOL.  II. — 4* 


82  SERMONS. 

not  only  needless,  they  are  exclivded ;  for  you  see  tlie 
invitation  is  to  those  who  have  no  money,  who  can 
pay  no  price.  "  Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come 
ye  to  the  waters,  and  he,  (or  even)  he  that  hath  no 
money."  It  is  true  the  word  "  buy"  is  added — "  Come 
ye,  buy  and  eat" — but  the  Hebrew  word  is  not  the 
usual  equivalent  to  l)uy :  it  is  a  word  used  elsewhere 
to  denote  no  purchase  except  that  of  food ;  and 
even  in  that  application  may  mean  properly  the  mere 
act  of  jprociiring^  by  whatever  means,  though  com- 
monly applied  to  purchase,  in  the  strict  sense.  If  so, 
it  may  here  be  understood  to  mean  "  supply  your- 
selves." But  even  granting  that  the  word  means  huy 
— and  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  could  not  fail  to 
suggest  that  idea  to  a  Jewish  reader — it  appears  to 
me  that  it  is  evidently  used  here  for  the  very  purpose 
of  expressing  with  more  emphasis  the  perfect  freeness 
of  the  offer  made.  They  are  called  to  buy,  indeed, 
but  who  ?  who  are  to  be  the  buyers  ?  Why,  those 
who  have  no  money ;  and  lest  this  should  be  misun- 
derstood as  implying  that  some  other  mode  of  pay- 
ment would  be  called  for  beside  money,  all  miscon- 
struction is  precluded  by  the  paradoxical,  but  most 
expressive  phrase — buy  wine  and  milk  without 
MONEY  AND  WITHOUT  PRICE.  This  full  and  unam- 
biguous description  of  the  offer  as  gratuitous,  is  any 
thing  but  needless  or  superfluous.  It  has  its  use,  a 
most  important  use,  in  guarding  men  against  a  natu- 
ral and  common  error. 

The  offers  of  the  good  things  of  this  world  are  all 
made  on  a  contrary  condition  :  the  calls  of  this  world  are 
to  those  who  have  money,  those  who  can  render  some 


ISAIAH  55,  1.  83 

equivalent  for  tliat  wliich  tliey  receive.  So  universal  is 
this  rule,  that  it  is  often  hard  for  men  to  be  convinced 
that  the  offer  of  salvation  is  gratuitous.  They  feel 
that  something  must  be  rendered  in  return,  and  there- 
fore they  conclude  that  the  forms  of  invitation,  which 
imply  gratuity  and  freeness,  are  to  be  understood  as 
excluding  merely  some  gross  forms  of  compensation, 
that  if  money  in  the  strict  sense  be  rejected,  as  it 
must  be,  it  is  only  to  make  way  for  some  equivalent ; 
and  thus  men,  in  the  face  of  God's  most  solemn  dec- 
larations, feed  the  pride  of  their  own  hearts  with  the 
delusive  hope  that  they  shall  yet  pay  down  the  price 
of  their  salvation.  In  others,  the  same  error  may 
assume  a  humbler  form.  Knowing  the  principles  on 
which  men  are  accustomed  to  distribute  their  gifts, 
and  imperfectly  instructed  in  the  principles  of  God's 
most  gracious  dispensations,  they  are  ready  to  infer 
that,  as  they  have  no  price  to  pay,  they  are  excluded 
from  the  offer.  It  is  just  as  if  the  poor,  exhausted 
pilgrim  in  the  desert,  seeing  others  crowd  around  the 
well  or  cistern,  should  imagine  that  the  water  must  be 
purchased,  and,  aware  of  his  own  poverty,  relinquish 
all  attempts  to  reach  it. 

But  suppose  that,  just  as  he  has  come  to  this  con- 
clusion, a  voice  is  heard  proclaiming,  "  IIo,  every  one 
that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters  ! "  and,  as  if  to 
preclude  all  possibility  of  doubt  as  to  the  freeness  of 
the  offer,  adding,  "  He  that  hath  no  money."  How 
would  such  a  person  be  affected  by  tlie  sound  ?  And 
how  ought  thirsting,  starving,  and  desponding  souls 
to  be  affected,  when  they  hear  the  want  of  merit  upon 
their  part  made  an  express  condition  of  the  offer  of 


84  SERMOTS. 

salvation  ?  And  above  all,  Iiow  ouglit  those  who 
make  the  ofler,  to  be  watchful  against  every  thing  at 
all  at  variance  with  this  first  principle  of  free  salva- 
tion. Shall  the  ignorance,  or  negligence,  or  shallow 
experience  of  those  who  are  sent  forth  to  seek  and 
save  the  lost,  be  suffered  to  convert  the  free  and  gra- 
cious invitations  of  the  Saviour  into  legal  bargains,  in 
which  grace  is  bought  and  sold  under  some  specious 
pretext  ?  This  is  no  trifling  or  unmeaning  question. 
There  is  a  spurious  liberality  of  feeling  and  opinion 
upon  this  point,  a  spirit  of  concession  to  the  legal 
doctrine  of  salvation  by  works,  as  if  there  were  really 
a  mere  verbal  difference  between  the  two.  And  this 
feeble,  compromising  temper,  may  gain  access  to  the 
pulpit  and  the  press,  without  any  formal  dereliction 
of  the  strictest  forms  of  orthodox  belief 

The  half-instructed  youth  who  rushes  hastily  into 
the  field  of  labour,  under  a  strong  conviction  that  the 
world  is  ready  to  perish  for  the  want  of  his  individual 
services,  is  very  apt  to  carry  with  him  a  confused,  un- 
settled view  of  this  essential  matter,  and,  by  way  of 
shunning  metaphysical  distinctions  and  scholastic  for- 
mulas, to  clog  the  glorious  offer  of  a  free  salvation 
with  the  pitiful  conditions  of  a  mere  self-righteous- 
ness. It  has  been  done.  It  may  be  done  again.  But 
w^ho  will  dare  to  do  it  ?  Who  will  dare  with  his  eyes 
open  to  exclude  from  Christ  those  who  are  specially 
entitled  to  approach  him,  for  the  very  reason  that 
their  guilt  is  great,  their  misery  extreme,  their  own 
strength  nothing,  and  their  merit  less  than  nothing  ? 
for  instead  of  meriting  reward,  they  merit  punish- 
ment.    Will  you  exclude  them,  or  impede  them,  on 


ISAIAH  55,  1  85 

the  ground  that  a  gratuitous  offer  will  encourage  sin  ? 
If  jou  do  it  at  all,  this  will  no  doubt  be  jour  motive. 
And  to  what  docs  it  amount  ?  Tliat  you  are  more 
afraid  of  sin,  and  more  unwilling  to  encourage  it,  than 
God  himself.  The  necessary  consequence  of  what 
you  do  is  to  condemn  your  Maker. 

"  Snatch  from  his  hand  the  sceptre  and  the  rod, 
Re-judge  his  justice,  be  the  God  of  God." 

Tliey  who  are  good  enough  or  bad  enough  for 
Christ  to  save,  are  good  enough  for  you  to  seek  in 
order  to  salvation.  The  objection  is  a  merely  theo- 
retical objection  ;  it  is  utterly  at  war  with  all  expe- 
rience ;  the  abusers  of  God's  grace  have  never  been 
the  true  recipients  of  gratuitous  salvation.  They  have 
been  the  cavillers  and  carpers  at  it.  They  have  often 
been  the  self-sufficient  formalist,  and  the  self-deceiv- 
ing hypocrite.  There  is  no  danger  in  obeying  God, 
and  following  his  example.  And  as  he  has  made  the 
want  of  merit,  and  of  all  reliance  upon  merit  a  con- 
dition of  acceptance  with  him,  let  us  go  and  do  like- 
wise. Let  us  not  act  the  part  of  the  ungrateful  and 
uncharitable  servant,  who  no  sooner  had  obtained 
from  his  master  the  remission  of  his  own  debt,  than 
he  cruelly  exacted  the  inferior  obligation  of  his  fcllow- 
^ervant.  In  the  parable,  indeed,  the  debt  exacted  was 
one  due  to  the  very  man  whose  own  debt  had  been 
just  remitted.  But  we  may  be  sure  that  if  he  had 
been  equally  severe  in  the  exaction  of  debts  owing  to 
his  lord,  although  his  guilt  would  have  been  less,  al- 
though his  error  might  have  sprung  from  an  unen- 
lightened zeal  for  the  rights  of  Him  by  whose  free 


86  SERMONS. 

favour  he  had  been  himself  forgiven,  he  would  not 
have  escaped  censure. 

Nor  shall  ^ve,  if  we  do  likewise.  No,  my  brethren, 
it  is  not  the  will  of  Him,  who,  as  we  humbly  trust, 
has  pardoned  us  so  freely,  that  in  publishing  the  gos- 
pel of  his  grace,  we  should  lay  hold  of  our  wretched 
fellow-sinners  by  the  throat,  and  say.  Pay  my  master 
what  thou  owest.  It  is  not  the  will  of  Christ  that 
the  salvation  which  he  died  for,  which  he  bought  by 
death,  and  which  he  paid. for  with  his  heart's  blood 
to  the  uttermost  farthing,  should  be  brought  into  the 
market  and  exposed  to  sale  by  us,  as  if  it  could  again 
be  purchased  by  the  groans  wrung  from  the  heart  of 
the  despairing  sinner,  who  instead  of  being  brought 
to  Christ  is  thus  put  from  him,  it  may  be  forever.  If 
any  perversion  of  the  truth  can  be  insulting  to  the 
Saviour,  it  is  this.  It  must  needs  be  that  offences 
come,  but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offence 
cometh.  The  way  in  which  that  woe  may  be  avoided 
is  too  plain  to  be  mistaken.  It  is  one  which  brings 
us  back  to  the  same  point  from  which  we  started  ;  the 
necessity  of  following  God's  own  example  in  the  offer 
of  salvation. 

If  we  do  this  we  are  safe.  Let  us  all  then  learn  to 
do  it.  Both  in  public  and  in  private,  as  we  have  oc- 
casion, let  us  open  to  the  sinner's  view  the  fountain 
of  life,  and  if  he  will  not  look,  or  if  he  be  so  far  off 
that  he  cannot  see  it,  while  he  dies  of  thirst  and 
hunger,  let  us  lift  up  our  voices,  and  with  piercing 
accents  bid  him  come  and  live ;  let  us  tell  him  that 
he  must  come  or  be  lost  forever  ;  but  beware  of  add- 
ing  any  other  limitation ;    let  us  call  with  special 


I 


r 


ISAIAH  55,  1.  87 

emphasis  to  those  who  are  most  destitute  of  all  meri 
torious  pretensions  to  be  saved ;  to  the  ignorant,  the 
desperately  wicked,  to  the  heathen ;  and  as  they  pass 
by,  rushing  madly  to  destruction,  whether  near  us  or 
afar  off,  let  us  make  their  ears  to  tingle  with  the 
memorable  words  of  the  prophetic  preacher,  "Ho, 
every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters,  and 
he  tliat  hath  no  money,  come  ye,  buy  and  eat :  yea 
come,  buy  wine  and  milk  without  money  and  with- 
out price." 


V. 


Isaiah  55,  2. — "Wherefore  do  ye  spend  money  for  that  wLlch  is  not 
bread  ?  and  your  labour  for  that  which  satisfieth  not  ?  Hearken  dil- 
igently unto  me,  and  eat  ye  that  which  is  good,  and  let  your  soul 
delight  itself  in  fatness. 

Having  set  forth,  in  tlie  first  verse,  the  perfect 
adaptation  of  the  grace  which  is  offered  in  the  gospel, 
to  the  wants  of  sinners,  as  a  sonrce  of  refreshment, 
spiritual  strength,  and  divine  exhilaration  ;  and  hav- 
ing, at  the  same  time,  exhibited  its  absolute  and  per- 
fect freeness,  by  inviting  men  to  buy  it  "  without 
money  and  without  price,"  the  evangelical  prophet 
now  expostulates  with  those  who  are  unwilling  to  re- 
ceive it,  and  exposes  tlie  absurdity  of  thus  refusing  to 
embrace  the  only  real  good,  while  at  the  same  time 
they  are  toiling  in  pursuit  of  that  which  is  imaginary. 
If  it  were  possible  for  men  to  forego  all  desire  of  hap- 
piness, and  all  attempts  to  gain  it,  such  a  course 
would  be  demonstrably  unworthy  of  a  rational  and 
moral  agent,  whose  entire  constitution  shows  him  to 
have  been  created  for  the  future.  But  in  that  case, 
notwithstanding  the  stupendous  guilt  and  folly  of  his 
conduct,  he  would  have  wherewith  to  parry  the  at- 
tacks of  conscience,  and  evade  the  invitations  of  the 


ISAIAH  55,  2.  89 

gospel,  by  alleging  that  he  asked  for  nothing  more 
than  he  possessed,  that  his  desires  were  satisfied,  and 
that  it  would  be  folly  to  disturb  his  own  enjoyment 
and  exhaust  the  remnant  of  his  days  in  seeking  that  of 
which  he  felt  no  need,  and  the  attainment  of  which 
could  not  possibly  afford  him  any  satisfaction. 

It  is  easy  to  perceive  the  self-deluding  sophistry 
of  such  a  plea,  assuming,  as  it  does,  the  non-existence, 
nay  impossibility  of  all  degrees  of  happiness  not  ac- 
tually experienced ;  an  absurdity  so  palpable,  as  of 
itself  to  be  an  adequate  preventive  of  that  stagnant 
apathy  which  it  defends.  But  the  necessity  of  any 
such  preventive  is  excluded  by  the  very  constitution 
of  our  nature,  which  has  made  it  impossible  for  sen- 
tient  creatures  to  be  wholly  regardless  of  their  own 
well-being.  Blinded  and  grievously  mistaken  they 
may  be  as  to  the  best  means  of  securing  it,  and  as  to 
the  comparative  amount  of  good  attainable  in  that 
course  which  they  are  pursuing  and  in  others.  But 
they  must  pursue  some  course  as  the  way  to  happi- 
ness. The  living  creature  clings  to  life  imtil  he  finds 
it  insupportable,  and  even  then  he  chooses  death  not 
as  a  greater  but  a  lesser  evil.  It  is  not  against  a 
hatred  of  enjoyment,  therefore,  or  an  absolute  indifi'er- 
ence  to  it,  that  the  grace  of  God  and  the  salvation  of 
the  gospel  must  contend ;  it  is  against  the  most  in- 
tense desire  of  happiness  acting  in  the  wrong  direction, 
and  impelling  him  who  feels  it  to  the  use  of  means, 
which  must  ultimately  thwart  the  very  end  which 
they  are  now  employed  to  bring  about. 

The  expostulation  of  the  preacher  is  not,  "  Why,  oh 
why  are  you  not   hungry?    why  do  you  refuse  to 


90  SERMOISS. 

spend  your  inonej,  and  your  labour  in  obtaining 
food  ?  "  but  it  is,  "  Why  do  ye  spend  money  for  that 
which  is  not  bread,  and  your  labour  for  that  which 
satislieth  not  ?  "  Observe,  too,  that  he  does  not  seek 
to  remedy  the  evils  which  arise  from  perverted  and 
unsatisfied  desire,  by  the  extinction  of  the  appetite 
itself; — of  that  immortal,  inextinguishable  craving, 
which  can  only  cease  by  annihilation,  or  by  full 
fruition.  This,  indeed,  is  a  distinctive  mark  of  true 
religion,  as  opposed  to  other  systems.  Since  the  evils 
uuder  which  the  human  race  is  groaning  may  be 
clearly  traced  to  tlie  inordinate  indulgence  of  desii-es 
after  happiness,  under  the  influence  of  "  strong  delu- 
sions," as  to  that  which  can  aflbrd  it,  we  are  not  to 
wonder  that  when  unassisted  reason  undertakes  to  do 
away  with  the  effect,  it  should  attempt  the  extirpa- 
tion of  the  cause  ;  and  you  will  find  accordingly  that 
every  system  of  religion  or  philosophy,  distinct  from 
Christianity,  either  indulges,  under  some  disguise,  that 
perversion  of  man's  natural  desire  after  happiness 
wliich  makes  him  wretched,  or  affects  to  cure  it  by 
destroying  the  desire  itself. 

Between  these  Epicurean  and  Stoical  extremes, 
all  systems  of  religion  but  the  true  one  have  been 
oscillating  since  the  world  began.  The  one  has  found 
favour  with  the  many,  the  other  with  the  few ;  the 
one  has  prevailed  in  society  at  large,  the  other  has 
arisen  from  the  over-refinements  of  a  vain  philosoj)hy. 
And  thus  these  two  antagonist  errors  have  existed 
and  produced  their  bitter  fruit  simultaneously,  and 
under  every  outward  form  of  practice  and  belief. 
While  the  one  has  shown  itself  in  the  prevailing  self 


ISAIAH  55,  2.  91 

indulgence  of  all  lieatlien  nations,  in  the  sensual  creed 
and  practice  of  the  Moslem,  in  the  Papist's  compro- 
mise between  his  pleasures  on  the  one  hand,  and  his 
periodical  confessions  on  the  other,  and  in  a  similar 
but  more  concealed  mode  of  compensation  on  the 
part  of  those  who  hold  the  truth  in  unrighteousness  ; 
the  other  has  appeared  in  the  speculations'  and  self- 
denial  of  the  old  philosophers,  the  austerities  and  self- 
inflicted  sufferings  of  heathen,  Mohammedan,  and 
Christian  self-tormentors.  And  with  what  effect? 
that  of  plunging  men  in  the  bottomless  abyss  of  self- 
indulgence  on  the  one  hand,  or  in  that  of  a  desperate 
unbelief  upon  the  other.  But  while  one  voice  cries 
to  the  bewildered  sinner,  "  Cease  to  hunger,  cease  to 
thirst,"  and  another  from  an  opposite  direction  bids 
him  "  Eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die,"  the  voice 
of  God  and  of  the  gospel  is,  "  Wherefore  do  ye  spend 
your  money  for  that  which  is  not  bread,  and  your 
labour  for  that  which  satisfieth  not  ?  " 

The  question  presupposes  that  the  soul  is  hungry, 
that  it  must  be  hungry  until  it  is  fed,  that  the  gnaw- 
ings  of  this  hunger  will  constrain  it  to  seek  food,  and 
that  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  no  less  than  the 
desire  of  enjoyment,  will  induce  it_  to  give  any  thing 
it  has  in  exchange  for  the  necessary  means  of  its  sub- 
sistence and  enjoyment ;  that  the  fatal  error  lies  not 
in  the  seeking  after  something  to  sustain  it  and  to 
make  it  happy,  but  in  imagining  that  this  end  can  be 
answered  by  the  pleasures,  gains,  and  honours  of  the 
world,  which  arc  not  only  brief  in  their  duration,  but 
unsuited  in  their  nature,  even  while  they  last,  to  sat- 
.sfy  the  wants  of  an  immortal  spirit.     It  is  tliis  view 


92  MRMONS. 

of  mail's  natural  condition  upon  wliicli  the  invitations 
of  tlie  gospel  are  all  founded ;  and  the  absolute  coin- 
cidence of  this  view  with  the  lessons  of  experience  is 
among  the  strongest  proofs,  not  only  that  Christianity 
is  better  suited  to  the  actual  necessities  of  man  than 
any  other  system  of  belief,  but  also  that  it  is  a  plan 
devised  by  one  who  had  an  intimate  and  perfect 
knowledge  of  our  nature ;  while  the  most  ingenious 
speculations  of  philosophy,  even  when  aided  by  a 
partial  reception  and  appropriation  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  Bible,  at  every  step  have  betrayed  the  grossest 
ignorance  of  man's  original  and  actual  condition,  and 
of  the  only  way  in  which  his  restoration  can  be  pos- 
sibly effected. 

The  Christian,  in  endeavouring  to  win  men  to  the 
Saviour,  may  proceed  in  full  assurance,  that  the  plan 
which  he  developes  and  the  offers  which  he  makes, 
are  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  natural  capacities 
and  wants  of  those  for  whose  salvation  he  is  labouring, 
and  under  this  encouragmg  conviction  he  may  cry 
aloud  and  spare  not,  to  the  starving  souls  around  him, 
"  Hearken  diligently  unto  me,  and  eat  ye  that  which 
is  good." 

For  let  it  be  observed,  that  wliile  the  prophet 
shows  the  insufficiency  of  temjDoral  enjoyments  or  ad- 
vantages as  means  of  happiness,  he  is  far  from  leaving 
us  to  be  content  with  this  as  a  mere  tlieoretical  opin- 
ion, which  can  lead  to  nothing  but  a  painful  con- 
sciousness of  want  unsatisfied,  and  to  that  sickness  of 
the  lieart  produced  by  "  hope  deferred."  But  on  the 
contrary,  he  makes  the  utter  insufficiency  of  earthly 
good  an  argument,  a  reason^  not  for  ceasing  to  desire. 


ISAIAH  55,  2.  (JO 

which  is  impossible,  and  if  it  were  not,  would  be 
wrong  and  foolish,  but  for  fixing  the  desires  upon 
other  objects,  good  in  themselves,  and  adapted  to  our 
nature.  lie  assures  the  disappointed  soul  that  happi- 
ness is  really  attainable;  and  while  the  last  achieve- 
ment of  philosophy  (falsely  so  called)  is  to  make  man 
acquiesce  with  a  sullen  apathy  in  the  frustration  of 
his  dearest  hopes,  the  gospel  soars  immeasurcably 
higher,  and  assures  him  that  his  hopes  shall  not  be 
frustrated;  that  there  is  a  good  as  perfect,  nay  im- 
measurcably more  so  than  his  fondest  wishes  ever 
yet  conceived  ;  a  good,  substantial  and  enduring,  aye 
and  satisfying  too,  at  which  he  may,  at  which  he 
ought  to  aim,  and  aiming  at  which  he  shall  not  be 
disappointed,  because  God  invites  him  to  desire  it  and 
to  seek  it,  holding  it  out  as  an  equivalent,  a  substi- 
tute, for  that  ideal  and  fallacious  good,  in  quest  of 
which  he  is  exhausting  nature  and  despising  grace. 
To  such,  to  all  such  let  the  voice  of  invitation  come  in 
tender  and  persuasive  tones.  Let  all  who  are  em- 
ployed in  the  laborious,  but  vain  attempt,  to  feed 
a  spiritual  nature  with  material  good,  hear  God's 
voice  like  the  voice  of  a  compassionate  father  to  his 
erring  children  saying,  "  Wherefore  do  ye  spend  your 
money  for  that  which  is  not  bread,  and  your  labour 
for  that  which  satisfieth  not?  Hearken  diligently 
unto  me,  and  eat  ye  that  which  is  good,  and  let  your 
soul  delight  itself  in  fatness." 

But  is  this  all  ?  Is  this  indefinite  assurance  that 
there  is  a  good  sufficient  and  attainable,  the  highest 
and  best  offer  that  the  gospel  makes  to  sinners? 
Must  the  soul,  disappointed  in  ifrs  quest  of  earthly 


94  SERMONS. 

good,  be  left  to  gaze  at  random  on  the  infinite  variety 
of  possible  contingencies  by  wliicli  the  cravings  of  its 
nature  may  be  satisfied  ?  Alas  !  if  this  were  all,  the 
tender  mercies  of  the  gospel  wonld  be  cruel.  If  the 
sinner  is  to  be  convinced  of  the  unsatisfying  nature  of 
the  objects  he  is  actually  seeking,  only  in  order  to  be 
tauo-ht  that  there  is  somewhere  in  the  universe  an  ob- 
jeet  truly  worthy  of  his  choice  and  suited  to  his  na- 
ture, but  without  direction  where  or  how  he  is  to  seek 
it ;  how  can  this  tantalizing  process  be  regarded  as 
a  favourable  change,  or  one  promotive  of  his  happi- 
ness ?  If  he  is  never  to  know  more  than  this,  that 
there  is  only  one  way  of  becoming  blessed,  and  that 
he  has  missed  it,  it  were  better  for  him  to  remain  in 
his  delusion.  But,  mj  friends,  if  Christianity  has  ever 
left  men  in  this  state  of  mere  negation,  it  is  not  be- 
cause its  Author  or  the  word  of  God  has  thus  revealed 
it,  but  because  the  heralds  who  were  sent  forth  to 
proclaim  it  were  mistaken  in  their  own  views,  or  un- 
faithful to  their  trust. 

But  the  voice  of  God  himself  has  no  such  "  uncer- 
tain sound."  He  does  not  proclaim  merely  that  there 
is  salvation  somewhere,  and  exhort  mankind  to  seek 
it ;  but  he  leads  them  to  it :  he  stands  at  the  fountain 
of  life  and  cries,  "Ho,  every  oue  that  thirsteth,  come 
ye  to  the  waters, — "  to  these  waters.  "  Look  unto  me 
and  be  saved,  all  ye  ends  of  the  earth."  "  Incline 
your  ear  and  come  unto  me  :  hear,  and  your  soul  shall 
live."  He  does  not  merely  tell  the  wanderer  in  the 
desert  that  he  has  lost  his  way  ;  he  does  not  merely 
show  him  how  he  may  regain  it ;  but  he  stands,  and 
calls  him  to  come  hither ;    Come  to  me  ;   turn  away 


ISAIAH  55,  2.  95 

jour  eyes  from  every  other  object,  and  especially  from 
those  which  have  hitherto  misled  you ;  listen  no 
longer  to  the  voices  which  have  tempted  you  astray, 
and  which  are  still  loudly  ringing  in  your  ears.  Ke- 
gard  them  not,  for  they  would  lead  you  downwards 
to  despair  and  death.  "  I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth, 
and  the  life."  "  Incline  your  ear  and  come  unto  me: 
hear,  and  your  soul  shall  live." 

This  direction  of  the  soul  to  a  specific  and  exclu- 
sive object  as  its  only  ground  of  hope  and  trust,  with- 
out allowing  any  interval  of  doubt,  or  any  liberty  of 
choice,  is  a  distinctive  feature  in  the  gospel  system, 
and  should  never  be  forgotten  in  the  dispensation  of 
the  grace  of  God  by  his  ambassadors.  The  soul,  when 
really  convinced  of  its  own  error  in  resorting  to  tlie 
world  and  to  itself  for  happiness,  if  suffered  to  remain 
witliout  a  fixed  point  of  attraction  and  dependence, 
^vill  infallibly  revert  to  its  abandoned  idols,  or  to  some 
new  form  of  self-delusion,  more  incurable  and  fatal 
than  the  old,  because  adopted  under  the  excitement  of 
a  groundless  hope,  and  amidst  the  raptures  of  a  spu- 
rious joy.  The  only  safeguard  against  such  delusions 
is  a  full  exhibition  of  the  one  way  of  salvation,  and 
in  this  as  in  other  points  already  mentioned,  we  have 
only  to  follow  a  divine  example.  For  the  prophet, 
speaking  in  the  name  of  God,  after  calling  men  to 
come  to  him,  to  hear  him  that  their  souls  may  live, 
annexes  to  this  gracious  invitation  the  si^ecific  prom- 
ise of  a  sure  salvation  ;  a  salvation  not  contingent  or 
fortuitous,  but  one  provided  by  a  gracious  constitu- 
tion on  the  part  of  God  himself;  a  salvation  promised 
and  confirmed  by  oath  ;  a  covenant  of  mercy,  eternal 


gQ  SERMONS. 

in  its  origin,  and  everlasting  in  its  stipnlations,  com- 
preliending  in  its  -wonderfnl  provisions  tlie  essential 
requisite  of  an  atonement,  a  priest  and  sacrifice,  an 
all-sufficient  Saviour ;  not  a  Saviour  whose  perform- 
ance of  his  office  should  be  partial,  or  contingent,  or 
uncertain  from  the  change  of  person,  but  the  One, 
the  only  Saviour,  "  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever;"  a  priest  forever  after  the  order  of  Melchise- 
dec,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Son  of  man,  the  Son  of 
David,  who  should  sit  upon  his  royal  father's  throne 
for  ever,  who  was  promised  to  the  dying  king  himself, 
and  of  whom  that  expiring  saint  exclaimed,  "  This  is 
all  my  salvation  and  all  my  desire !  "  It  is  to  this 
exclusive  object  that  tJie  sinner's  faith  and  hope  are 
turned  when  God  says  by  the  prophet:  "Incline 
your  ear  and  come  unto  me  :  hear  and  your  soul  shall 
live :  and  I  will  make  an  everlasting  covenant  with 
you,  even  the  sure  mercies  of  David." 

Some  suppose  that  Christ  is  here  expressly  men- 
tioned by  the  name  of  David,  an  interpretation  not 
by  any  means  so  arbitrary  as  it  may  appear  to  those 
who  have  not  made  themselves  acquainted  with  the 
remarkable  variety  of  names  by  which  the  prophets 
designate  the  Saviour.  In  the  words  before  us,  how- 
ever they  may  be  exjDlaincd,  there  is  an  evident  allu- 
sion to  the  promise  made  to  David  and  recorded  in 
the  first  book  of  Samuel,  (7,  16,)  "  Thine  house  and 
thy  kingdom  shall  be  established  forever  before  thee, 
thy  throne  shall  be  established  forever,"  viz.,  by  the 
succession  of  Messiah,  of  whom  it  was  said,  before  his 
birth,  by  a  messenger  from  heaven  :  "  He  shall  be 
great,  and  sliall  be  called  the  Son  of  the  Highest,  and 


ISAIAH  55,  2.  97 

tlie  Lord  sliall  give  unto  liim  tlie  tlircne  of  ids  fatlita' 
David,  and  lie  shall  reign  over  the  house  of  Jacoli 
forever,  and  of  his  kingdom  there  shall  be  no  end."" 
(Lnke  1,  32.  33.) 

It  was  in  the  prospect  of  this  glorions  succession, 
by  which  David  was  to  live  again  and  reign  agaii' 
forever,  that  the  ancient  prophets  uttered  some  <'l 
their  most  cheering  and  sublime  predictions :  (Jer. 
23,  5.  6.)  "  Behold  the  days  come,  saitli  the  Lord, 
that  I  will  raise  unto  David  a  righteous  branch,  and 
a  king  shall  reign  and  prosper,  and  shall  execute 
judgment  and  justice  in  the  earth.  In  his  days  Judah 
shall  be  saved,  and  Israel  shall  dwell  safely,  and  this 
is  the  name  whereby  he  shall  be  called,  Jehovah  our 
Eighteousncss."  In  these  words  of  Jeremiah,  Christ 
is  represented  as  a  branch  which  should  be  raised  up 
unto  David  ;  in  those  of  Ezekiel  which  follow,  he  ap- 
pears in  the  character  of  David  himself :  (Ezek.  34, 
22.  23.  21.)  "  I  will  save  my  flock,  and  they  shall  no 
more  be  a  prey,  and  I  will  judge  between  cattle  and 
cattle ;  and  I  will  set  up  one  Shejiherd  over  them, 
and  he  shall  feed  them,  even  my  servant  David  ;  ho 
shall  feed  them,  and  he  shall  be  their  Shepherd,  and 
I  the  Lord  will  be  their  God,  and  my  servant  David 
a  prince  among  them  :  I  the  Lord  have  spoken  it." 
And  again:  (Ezek  37,  24.  25.)  "  So  shall  they  bo 
my  people,  and  x  will  be  their  God,  and  David  my 
servant  shall  be  king  over  them,  and  they  all  shall 
have  one  shepherd  :  they  shall  also  walk  in  my  judg- 
ments, and  observe  my  statutes,  and  do  them.  And 
.hey  shall  dwell  in  the  land  that  I  have  given  unto 
Jacob  my  servant,  wherein  3'our  fathers  have  dwelt ; 

VOL.  II. — 5 


08 


SERMONS. 


thej  shall  dwell  therein,  even  they,  and  their  children, 
and  their  children's  children  forever,  and  my  servant 
David  shall  be  their  prince  forever."  These  are  clear 
cases  of  the  application  of  the  name  to  Christ,  and 
will  perhaps  suffice  to  justify  a  like  interpretation  in 
the  case  before  us,  even  in  the  absence  of  all  parallel 
expressions  in  the  writings  of  Isaiah. 

There  is,  however,  no  necessity  for  any  such  inter- 
pretation, as  the  words  here  used,  unlike  those  of 
Ezekiel,  may  be  referred  either  to  the  future  or  the 
past;  and  because,  if  taken  in  their  obvious  meaning, 
as  referring  to  the  literal  king  David,  they  afford  a 
sense  good  in  itself  and  perfectly  coherent  with  the  con- 
text. There  is  less  reason  for  departing  from  the  ob- 
vious and  common-sense  meaning,  because,  in  either 
case,  the  reference  to  Christ  is  clear,  though  more  ex 
plicit  in  the  one  case  than  the  other.  On  the  one  sup- 
position, he  is  spoken  of  as  David ;  on  the  other,  as  the 
great  blessing  promised  to  David.  In  the  one  case, 
the  promise  is  :  "  Come  unto  me,  and  I  will  make  you 
partakers  of  the  blessings  promised  in  and  through 
the  second  David,  the  Messiah  ;  "  in  the  other  case  it 
is,  "  Come,  and  I  will  make  an  everlasting  covenant 
with  you,  securing  to  you  the  sic7'e  inercies,  the  bless- 
ings faithfully  and  irrevocably  promised  to  the  ancient 
David,  all  w^hich  blessings  meet  and  terminate  in 
Christ."  Li  either  case,  therefore,  the  promise  is 
specific,  and  the  offer  made  is  not  an  offer  of  salvation 
in  the  general  or  the  abstract,  but  of  free  salvation 
through  the  blood  of  Christ. 

Upon  these  two  points  in  the  offer  of  salvation, 
let  us  look  with  fixed  attention,     It  is  specific.     It  is 


ISAIAH  55,  2.  99 

sure.  It  is  not  mercy  in  general  that  is  offered,  but 
the  mfercies  of  David,  the  mercies  purchased  by  the 
second  David,  the  mercies  promised  to  the  ancient 
David,  which  he  hoped  for,  which  he  trusted  in,  and 
of  which  he  could  say :  "  this  is  all  my  salvation,  and 
all  my  desire."  It  is  this  peculiar,  special  exhibition 
of  God's  mercy  to  lost  simiers  that  is  here  held  forth 
to  them ;  it  is  this  that  he  offers  to  make  theirs  by 
the  provisions  of  an  everlasting  covenant,  even  the 
sure  mercies  of  David  ;  for  the  blessing  offered  is  not 
only  definite  but  sure.  It  is  a  covenanted  blessing, 
and  it  therefore  cannot  fail ;  it  is  a  permanent  bless- 
ing, and  can  undergo  no  change ;  it  is  a  durable 
blessing,  and  shall  last  forever. 

These  two  attributes  or  qualities  of  Christ's  salva- 
tion, though  to  some  they  may  appear  of  little  moment, 
seem  not  so  to  the  convinced,  alarmed,  and  half-de- 
spairing soul,  when  after  trying  every  source  of  nat- 
ural enjoyment,  but  without  obtaining  rest  or  satis- 
faction, while  the  vast  variety  of  objects  sought  and 
tried,  sers'cs  only  to  distract  and  Aveary  it.  Hope 
faints  and  the  heart  sickens,  till  at  last,  through  sov- 
ereign mercy,  the  inviting  voice  of  Christ  and  of  his 
servants  gains  access  to  the  reluctant  ear,  and  with  the 
ear  the  eye  is  turned  to  that  quarter  whence  the  voice 
proceeds,  and  there,  no  longer  roving  among  many 
objects,  fixes  finally  on  one,  and  there  abides  forever. 

But  to  this  concentration  of  the  sinner's  hopes, 
there  must  be  added  an  assurance  of  security  and 
constancy  in  that  which  he  relies  upon,  or  he  can 
never  rest.  And  this  the  gospel  oflers  when  it  calls 
him  to  partake  of  "  the  sure  mercies  of  David."     It 


100  SERMONS. 

is  tbe  glory  of  this  great  salvation  that  it  is  thus 
"  sure ;  "  sure,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  cliange 
which  it  produces  in  the  relation  of  the  soul  to  Christ, 
and  sure  from  the  irrevocable  oath  and  promise  of  a  cov- 
enant-keeping God.  When  the  soul  is  awakened  to  a 
sense  of  its  condition,  the  first  great  object  of  its  wonder 
is  the  depth  and  aggravation  of  its  guilt,  which  seem 
to  render  its  escape  from  wrath  an  impossibility.  Soon 
its  wonder  is  excited  by  another  and  a  nobler  object, 
by  the  revelation  of  the  truth  that  God  can  be  just 
and  yet  a  justifier  of  the  ungodly.  Nor  is  this  its  last 
discovery,  for  after  vainly  struggling  to  acquire  some 
legal  right  to  the  salvation  which  is  thus  seen  to  be 
possible,  the  soul  is  filled  with  new  amazement  as  it 
forms  at  last  a  just  conception  of  the  glorious .  truth 
that  this  salvation  is  as  free  as  it  is  full  and  effica- 
cious, that  none  can  taste  of  it  at  all  but  those  who 
are  content  to  purchase  it  on  God's  own  terms, 
"  without  money  and  without  price." 

But  even  after  this  conception  has  been  formed, 
and  has  become  familiar,  weakness  of  faith  and  a  re- 
mairiino;  leaven  of  self-riorhteousness  will  often  lead  to 
sceptical  misgivings,  and  suspicions  that,  although 
the  gospel  method  of  salvation  be  a  perfect  one,  and 
perfectly  gratuitous,  it  may,  like  other  favours  be 
withdrawn,  and  he  who  rested  in  it,  perish  after  all. 
But  when  it  pleases  God  to  throw  the  rays  of  his  il- 
luminating grace  upon  the  soul  and  to  dispel  the 
clouds  of  ignorance  and  error  which  involve  it,  one 
of  the  first  objects  which  stands  forth  to  view  in  that 
self-evidencing  light,  is  the  unalterable  steadfastness 
and  absolute  security  of  that  salvation  which  is  offered 


I 


I 


ISAIAH  55,  'J.  101 

in  the  gospel.  It  is  there  seen,  too  clearly  to  admit 
of  doubt,  that  the  believer's  hope  is  founded,  not  at 
all  upon  himself,  but  altogether  on  another,  anl  the 
merit  of  that  other  always  the  same  and  always  in- 
finite. This  "  great  salvation  "  is  as  sure  as  it  is  free, 
sure  as  the  merit  of  the  Saviour  and  the  covenant  of 
God  can  make  it,  and  may  therefore  well  be  called, 
as  the  prophet  calls  it  in  the  text,  "  the  sure  mercies 
of  David." 

And  is  it  not  an  interesting  thought  that  the  same 
sure  mercies  npon  Avhich  the  dying  king  so  confi- 
dently rested,  and  in  praise  of  which  "  the  sweet 
psalmist  of  Israel "  aroused  the  farewell  echoes  of  his 
harp,  that  these  same  mercies  are  the  song  and  re- 
joicing of  the  humblest  convert  in  the  darkest  spots 
of  Africa  and  Asia  and  the  islands  of  the  sea,  and  that 
on  this  same  foundation  arc  erected  all  the  hopes  of 
those  who  name  the  name  of  Christ  in  these  ends  of 
the  earth  ? 

Was  this  extension  of  the  truth  foreseen  by  David 
and  Isaiah  ?  or  did  they  imagine,  with  their  carnal 
and  narrow-minded  countrymen,  that  "  Israel  accord- 
ing to  the  flesh  "  should  continue  to  monopolize  the 
promises  of  God  forever?  There  are  some  parts  of 
Scripture  where  the  promises  of  God  are  so  exclu- 
sively connected  with  the  name  and  local  circum- 
stances of  his  ancient  people,  as  to  furnish  some 
apology,  at  least,  for  the  pretensions  of  the  modern 
Jews,  and  at  the  same  time  to  divide  interpreters, 
who  harmonize  in  other  matters,  as  to  the  question 
whether  these  predictions  are  to  be  literally  verified 
hereafter,  or  have   already  been   accomplished  in  a 


102  SERMOXS. 

figurative,  spiritual  manner.  In  all  sucli  cases  it 
may  be  disputed  whether  the  promise,  in  its  original 
and  proper  sense,  extended  further  than  the  Jewish 
Church  ;  but  in  the  case  before  us,  the  ungrateful  ne- 
cessity of  such  restriction  is  precluded  by  the  lan- 
guage of  the  prophecy  itself;  for  the  attention  of  the 
thirstino;,  starvino;  sinner  has  no  sooner  been  directed 
to  the  Saviour  as  the  Son  and  yet  the  Lord  of  David, 
than  the  j)rophet,  speaking  in  the  name  of  God,  as  if 
to  encourage  even  us  who  are  "  sinners  of  the  Gen- 
tiles "  to  confide  in  the  same  all-sufficient  Saviour, 
says,  "  Behold  I  have  given  him  for  a  witness  to  the 
people,  a  leader  and  commander  to  the  people. 

The  connection  leaves  no  doubt  that  Christ  is  here 
the  subject  of  discourse.  He  was  a  witness  of  the 
truth,  but  an  authoritative  one,  because  he  spoke 
what  he  did  know :  he  spake  on  his  own  authority, 
not  that  of  others  ;  hence  he  was,  at  the  same  time,  a 
leader  and  commander  of  the  people.  To  the  mere 
English  reader,  this  important  verse  is  shorn  of  half 
its  meaning  and  of  all  its  emphasis  by  the  unhappy 
use  of  the  word  "  people,"  which  in  English  has  no 
plural,  to  translate  a  Hebrew  word  not  only  plural  in 
its  form,  but  most  emphatically  plural  in  its  sense. 
It  may  be  given  as  a  general  suggestion  to  the  read- 
ers of  the  prophecies  in  English,  that  in  multitudes  of 
cases,  where  the  very  thing  predicted  is  the  calling  of 
the  Gentiles,  it  is  utterly  obscured  in  the  translation 
by  this  idiomatical  defect  of  form  in  the  equivalent 
selected  for  the  word  denoting  "  nations,"  a  defect 
which  cannot  possibly  have  failed  to  render  that  illus- 
trious event  less  conspicuous  and  str'king  to  the  mind 


ISAIAH  55,  2.  103 

of  the  unlearned  English  Christian  thai  to  the  readers 
of  some  other  versions.  In  the  case  before  ns,  the 
divine  declaration  is  not  merely  or  at  all.  that  God 
had  set  Christ  forth  as  a  witness  and  commander  to 
the  Jews,  but  on  the  contrary  that  he  had  made  him, 
by  express  appointment,  a  witness  and  a  leader  to  the 
other  nations,  by  whose  convincing  testimony  and 
almighty  power,  God's  elect  were  to  be  gathered  out 
of  every  kindred,  tribe,  and  people  under  heaven. 
Christ  is  a  witness  of  the  truth,  a  prophet,  a  divinely 
constituted  teacher,  not  to  this  or  that  community  or 
race  of  men,  not  even  to  God's  chosen  and  peculiar 
people,  but  to  nations,  to  all  nations ;  and  his  office 
as  a  Prince  of  Peace  and  Captain  of  Salvation  is  no 
less  extensive.  To  the  nations  generally  he  reveals 
the  Father,  and  brings  life  and  immortality  to  light. 
This  wide  extent  of  his  official  influence  is  further- 
more expressed  in  what  immediately  follows,  where 
the  Pather  speaks  of  him  no  more  in  the  third 
person,  but  addresses  him  directly,  and  assures  him 
tliat  Lis  saving  power  should  extend  to  nations  which 
lie  knew  not  in  his  human  personality,  to  nations 
which  were  aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of  Israel, 
and  strangers  to  the  old  restricted  covenants  of  prom- 
ise. To  the  carnal  Jews,  this  doctrine  was  a  stumb- 
ling-block and  foolishness,  because  they  reckoned  as 
political  and  natural  advantages  those  means  which 
God  had  used  to  prepare  the  way  for  Christ's  appear- 
ance and  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles.  Hence  they 
clung  with  impious  folly  to  the  means,  when  the  end 
had  been  accomplished,  and  imagined  in  their  blind- 
ness, that   the   system  which  they  worshipped  had 


104.  SERMONS. 

been  framed  for  their  sake,  when  the  word  of  God  on 
every  page,  assured  them  that  its  object  was  t:  glorify 
Jehovah;  and  that  when  this  great  end  could  be  an- 
swered more  eifectually  by  the  abrogation  of  the 
ancient  system  it  should  cease  forever.  And  in  view 
of  that  cessation,  and  of  Him  who  should  accomplish 
it  by  breaking  down  the  middle  wall  of  partition 
which  divided  Jews  from  Gentiles,  it  is  here  said  of 
him,  or  directly  to  him,  (v.  5,)  "  Behold,  thou  shalt  call  a 
nation  which  thou  knowest  not,  and  nations  that  knew 
not  thee  shall  run  unto  thee,  because  of  the  Lord  thy 
God,  and  for  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  for  he  hath  glo- 
rified thee."  As  Messiah  was  to  glorify  the  Father 
by  revealing  him  not  only  to  the  Jews,  but  to  the 
other  nations  which  had  never  known  him,  so  the 
Father  was  to  glorify  the  Son  by  making  him  a  wit- 
ness and  commander  of  the  nations,  and  by  granting 
liim  a  glorious  accession  from  tlie  Gentile  world;  by 
giving  him  the  heathen  for  his  inheritance,  the  utter- 
most parts  of  the  earth  for  his  possession;  by  inviting 
all  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  look  unto  him  for  salva- 
tion, and  thus  making  good  to  all  who  hear  the  call, 
the  stipulations  of  that  everlasting  covenant  which 
seals  to  all  believers,  without  national  distinction  or 
respect  of  persons,  "  the  sure  mercies  of  David." 

If,  in  addition  to  the  doctrinal  instructions  of  this 
interesting  passage,  we  would  learn  from  it  a  lesson 
in  the  art  of  invitation,  let  it  be  observed  (1)  that  we 
must  not  address  our  invitations  to  a  nature  of  which 
man  is  not  possessed,  but  to  his  actual  capacities  and 
wants,  admitting  or  assuming  their  reality  and 
strength,    and  striving  to   convince  him   that  they 


ISAIAH  55    2.  j^05 

never  can  be  satisfied  by  any  thing  but  that  which 
is  so  freely  offered  in  the  gospel.  (2)  In  the  next 
place,  let  ns  see  to  it,  that  this  great  offer  of  the  gos- 
pel be  distinctly  and  specifically  held  up  to  the  sin- 
ner's view,  instead  of  suffering  his  mind  to  rest  in  a 
mere  negative  conviction  that  the  world  is  not  a 
satisfying  portion,  or  allowed  to  roam  at  large  in 
search  of  untried  sources  of  enjoyment,  which  can 
never  prove  more  lasting  or  abundant  than  those 
which  have  already  been  resorted  to  in  vain.  (3) 
Let  no  man  be  invited  to  a  general  indefinite  reliance 
upon  mercy  as  an  attribute  of  God  without  regard  to 
that  particular  and  only  way  in  which  it  can  and  will 
be  exercised  to  fallen  man ;  but  let  him  be  invited  to 
a  share  in  the  provisions  of  that  everlasting  covenant 
which  God  has  promised  to  bestow  upon  him.* 

*  A  few  pages  ^f  the  conclusion  wanting. 


VI. 


Isaiah  55,  G. — Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  ;  e  may  be  /ound,  call  ye 
upon  him  ■while  he  is  near. 

Ik  tlie  preceding  context  these  truths  are  taught : 
that  there  is  au  abundant  supply  for  the  spiritual 
wants  of  men ;  that  this  supply  is  suited  to  their 
various  necessities ;  that  it  includes  refreshment, 
strength,  exhilaration ;  that  the  constitution  of  man's 
nature  forces  him  to  seek  some  satisfaction  ;  that  the 
multitude  are  actually  seeking  "  that  which  is  not 
bread,"  and  cannot  satisfy  the  soul ;  that  instead  of 
this,  the  gospel  offers  them  "  that  which  is  good,"  and 
invites  the  soul  to  "  delight  in  fatness  ;  "  that  this  offer 
is  a  free  one  ;  that  the  blessings  offered  may  be  bought, 
and  must  bo  bought,  "without  money  and  without 
price  ; "  that  they  can  only  be  obtained  by  hearken- 
ing to  God,  and  coming  unto  him ;  that  there  is  only 
one  way  of  access  to  him ;  that  this  one  way  is  opened 
by  a  covenant ;  that  this  covenant  is  "  an  everlasting 
covenant,  ordered  in  all  things  and  sure,"  (2  Sam.  23, 
5 ;)  that  the  Mediator  of  this  covenant  is  the  Son  of 


ISAIAH  55,  0.  IQij 

David,  the  second  David,  the  Messiah,  in  whom  are 
fulfilled  the  promises  made  to  the  Son  of  Jesse,  so 
that  the  mercies,  which  are  secured  to  men  through 
him,  may  well  be  called  "  the  sure  mercies  of  David ;  " 
that  these  mercies  are  not  offered  to  the  Jews  alone ; 
that  Christ  is  the  Saviour  of  tlie  Gentiles  also  ;  that 
his  office  is  that  of  "  a  witness  to  the  nations,  a  leader 
and  commander  of  the  nations ; "  that  however  -un- 
likely the  extension  of  the  gospel  to  the  nations  might 
appear,  it  must  take  place ;  that  Christ  will  call  nations 
which  he  knew  not,  and  that  nations  which  he  knew 
not  will  run  unto  him ;  that  this  event  must  happen 
as  an  appointed  means  of  glorifying  God  and  doing 
honour  to  the  Saviour. 

All  this  was  addressed,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
the  Jews  ;  and  now  the  propliet  seems  to  press  npon 
them  the  practical  question — What  then  ought  you 
to  do  ?  If  God  designs  thus  to  save  the  heathen  who 
have  never  known  him,  what  efiect  should  a  knowl- 
edge of  that  purpose  have  on  you,  to  whom  he  is  well 
known?  Shall  the  Gentiles  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  before  you  ?  Shall  publicans  and  harlots  press 
into  the  kingdom,  while  the  very  children  of  the  king- 
dom, whose  inheritance  it  is,  are  excluded?  This 
would  be  a  shame  and  a  calamity  indeed ;  but  how 
will  you  prevent  it? — by  excluding  them? — by  gain- 
ing possession  of  the  key  of  knowledge,  and  neither 
entering  yourselves,  nor  suffering  those  who  would  to 
enter?  This,  if  it  were  possible,  would  be  the  height 
of  wickedness  and  folly.  Ko ;  the  true  course  is  to 
enter  with  them,  or,  if  you  will,  before  them.  Your 
true  course  is  to  seek  the  Lord,  his  favour,  his  protec- 


IQS  SERMONS. 

tion,  to  call  upon  liim,  pray  to  him,  confess  to  him, 
acknowledge  liini,  and  that  withont  delay — before  it 
is  too  late — now,  even  now^ — now,  while  he  may  be 
found,  while  he  is  near,  while  he  is  still  yonr  God  by 
special  covenant.  If  you  would  not  see  the  heathen, 
whom  you  now  despise,  preferred  before  you,  and  re- 
ceived into  the  kingdom  of  Messiah,  while  you  your- 
selves are  shut  out,  use  the  only  sure  preventive — 
"  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  he  may  be  found,  call  ye 
upon  him  while  he  is  near." 

This  view  of  the  meaning  of  the  text  is  perfectly 
consistent  with  the  context,  and  with  other  passages 
in  which  this  motive  is  presented  to  the  Jews,  as  an 
inducement  to  be  j^rompt  and  diligent  in  making 
their  calling  and  election  snre.  But  it  may  well  be 
doubted  whether  this  is  the  whole  meaning.  It  may 
be  doubted  whether  this  is  even  the  chief  meaning. 
The  terms  of  the  text  are  in  no  respect  more  restricted 
than  those  of  the  preceding  verses,  and  especially  the 
first  part  of  the  chapter,  which  obviously  relates  to 
the  wants  of  men  in  general,  and  the  best  way  to  sup- 
ply them.  If  the  invitation  of  the  first  verse  is  gen- 
eral, the  exhortation  of  the  text  must  be  general  also. 
If  it  is  to  all  mankind  that  the  prophet  cries — 
"  Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  wa- 
ters ! " — it  is  surely  not  to  any  one  community  or 
nation  that  he  here  says ;  "  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while 
he  may  be  found,  call  ye  upon  him  while  he  is  near." 
Besides,  if  this  address  be  restricted  to  the  Jews,  the 
reason  implied  for  the  command  is  irrelevant.  If  the 
words  "  while  he  is  near  "  denote  "  while  he  continues 
in  a  special  covenant  relation  to  the  Jews,"  then  the 


ISAIAH  55,  6.  109 

command  would  seem  to  imply  that  bj^  seeking 
the  Lord  and  calling  npon  him,  that  peculiar  ex- 
clusive covenant  relation  might  be  rendered  perpetual, 
which  was  not  the  case.  Or  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
"  while  he  may  be  found  "  denotes  in  a  general  way 
the  possibility  of  finding  favour  and  forgiveness  at  his 
hands,  then  the  reason  suggested  is  in  no  respect  more 
applicable  to  the  Jews  than  to  the  Gentiles.  In  this 
sense  God  was  just  as  near  to  the  one  as  to  the  other. 
The  principles  on  which  he  would  forgive  and  save, 
were  just  the  same  in  either  case.  The  necessity  of 
seeking,  the  nature  of  the  object  sought,  the  way  of 
seeking  it,  are  wholly  independent  of  external  circum- 
stances. As  in  the  context,  so  here,  the  exhortation 
is  addressed  to  all  who  are  in  need.  It  is  therefore 
universal,  or,  at  least,  admits  of  a  universal  applica- 
tion. Even  suj^posing  that  it  has  a  special  reference 
to  the  Jews,  it  is  clear  that  the  projihet  says,  and 
that,  in  imitation  of  him,  we  may  say  likewise,  both 
to  Jew  and  Gentile,  "  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  he  may 
be  found,  call  ye  upon  him  while  he  is  near." 

I  do  not  scruple  to  address  the  call  to  all  who  hear 
me.  Are  you  disappointed  and  unsatisfied  ?  then 
seek  the  Lord.  Are  you  oppressed  with  a  sense  of 
guilt  ?  seek  the  Lord.  Are  you  careless  and  at  ease  ? 
I  warn  you  to  seek  the  Lord.  Sooner  or  later  you 
will  certainly  seek  him.  However  careless  you  may 
now  be,  the  day  is  coming  when  you  shall  seek  and 
not  find ;  when  you  shall  call  upon  him  and  receive 
no  answer.  There  is  a  limit  to  the  oflcr  of  salvation. 
If  there  were  not,  sin  would  be  without  control.  If 
the  sinner  could  suspend   his  choice  forever,  there 


110  SERMONS. 

vvonld  be  no  punishment.  The  offer  is  limited  to  this 
life.  And  even  in  this  life  there  is  a  limit.  There  is 
a  day  of  grace  in  which  men  may  be  saved,  and  this 
day  may  be  shorter  than  the  sinner's  lifetime.  There 
is  a  time  when  God  is  near,  and  when  he  may  be 
found.  There  must  be  a  time,  therefore,  when  he  is 
no  longer  near,  and  is  no  longer  to  be  found.  Con- 
sider this,  you  who  are  now  asleep  in  sin.  From  that 
sleep  you  must  and  will  awake.  You  will  either 
awake  to  righteousness  or  to  desj)air.  However  deep 
your  sleep  may  now  be,  and  however  long  it  may 
continue,  you  shall  awake  at  last,  and  in  your  terror 
seek  for  God,  wlien  he  is  no  more  to  be  found,  and 
call  upon  him  when  he  is  no  longer  near,  when  he  is 
grieved,  and  has  departed,  when  you  shall  "  feel  after 
him  "  in  vain  amidst  the  darkness  which  surrounds 
you,  and  shall  be  constrained  at  last  to  take  up  the 
sorrowful  and  bitter  lamentation,  "The  harvest  is 
past,  the  summer  is  ended,  and  we  are  not  saved." 
If  this  be  true,  and  it  cannot  be  disputed,  "  seek  ye 
the  Lord  while  he  may  be  found." 

But  how  shall  you  seek  him  ?  l!*[ot  in  this  or  that 
locality.  Regard  not  those  who  say :  "  Lo  here,  lo 
there ;  "  but  go  to  him  in  secret,  make  confession  of 
your  sins,  renounce  yourselves,  accept  the  Saviour 
whom  he  offers,  devote  yourselves  to  him,  and  thus 
"  call  upon  him  while  he  may  be  found."  Is  this  too 
much  to  ask  of  a  poor  ruined  sinner,  as  the  price  of 
his  salvation  ?  But  is  this  indeed  all  ?  Is  no  reforma- 
tion, no  change  of  life,  required  ?  Kot  as  the  merito- 
rious cause  of  your  salvation.  It  is  purchased  by  an- 
other.    But  you  cannot  avail  yourselves  of  it,  and 


IS.V-AH  55,  C.  Ill 

continue  as  you  are.  Fou  cannot  be  saved  in  sin. 
You  ma}^  be  saved  from  it.  The  same  A'oice  which 
Bays,  "  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  he  may  be  found,  call  ye 
upon  him  while  he  is  near,"  says  likewise,  (v.  T,)  "  Let 
the  wicked  forsake  his  way."  He  cannot  continue  in 
that  way,  and  be  saved.  "  ]N^o  man  can  serve  two 
masters  ; "  but  "  whosoever  committeth  sin,  he  is  the 
servant  of  sin."  Between  sin  and  holiness,  between 
God  and  mammon,  he  Qiiust  choose.  The  refusal  to 
choose  is  itself  a  choice.  To  refuse  to  choose  God 
is,  in  fact,  to  choose  sin.  Li  relation  to  this  question 
there  is  no  neutrality — there  can  be  none. 

If,  then,  the  sinner  would  indeed  seek  God,  he 
must  "  forsake  his  way," — a  common  figure  for  the 
course  of  conduct.  Life  is  a  journey  which  may  be 
pursued  by  many  distinct  paths  ;  but  the  way  of  God 
and  the  way  of  sin  lead  in  opposite  directions.  He 
who  would  tread  the  one,  not  only  will,  but  must,  for- 
sake the  other.  How  ? — by  a  mere  external  reforma- 
tion? No;  the  change  must  be  a  deeper  and  more 
thorough  one.  The  law  of  God,  which  condemns  the 
sinner's  life,  extends,  not  only  to  his  outward  acts,  but 
to  his  thoughts,  desires,  dispositions,  and  affections. 
The  moral  quality  of  outward  acts  arises  from  the 
motives  which  produce  them,  and  the  reformation 
which  the  gospel  calls  for,  reaches  far  beyond  the 
mere  external  conduct.  This  is  often  an  unwelcome 
discovery.  Men  are  at  first  hard  to  be  convinced 
that  there  is  an}^  danger  in  the  course  which  they  pur- 
sue. When  this  becomes  too  evident  to  be  disputed, 
they  are  prone  to  cling  to  the  idea  that  the  gospel 
asks  no  change  or  reformation ;  and  when  this  truth 


£12  SERMONS. 

can  no  longer  be  denied,  tliej  still  delude  themselves 
with  the  belief  that  the  required  reformation  extends 
merely  to  the  outward  life.  But  this  delusion  is  dis- 
pelled, and  they  are  made  to  hear  the  voice  of  God 
not  only  saying,  "  Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way," 
but,  "  the  unrighteous  man  his  thoughts." 

This  is  merely  negative.  It  cannot  be,  that  what 
God  calls  men  to,  is  a  mere  negation,  a  mere  absti- 
nence. There  must  be  something  positive.  There 
must  be  commands  as  well  as  prohibitions.  The  mere 
cessation  of  former  habits  would  be  insufficient ;  nay, 
it  is  impossible.  An  active  being  must  have  some- 
thing to  seek  as  well  as  something  to  avoid.  Evil 
courses  can  be  really  abandoned  in  no  other  way  than 
by  exchanging  them  for  good  ones.  If  men  would 
"  cease  to  do  evil,"  they  must  "  learn  to  do  well." 
This  is  a  dictate  of  nature,  of  reason,  of  experience,  of 
revelation.  It  is  the  voice  of  God  himself  who  says, 
"  Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way  and  the  unrighteous 
man  his  thoughts,  and  let  him  return  imto  the  Lord." 
The  fact  is  assumed  that  all  have  departed  from  him. 
The  words  may  seem  strictly  applicable  only  to  back- 
sliders— those  who  have  falsified  their  own  profes- 
sions— who  have  ajDOStatised  from  a  voluntary  visible 
relation  to  Jehovah,  and  who  may  with  strict  pro- 
priety be  summoned  to  "  return," — to  return  to  Him 
from  whom  they  have  "  so  deeply  revolted."  To  any 
such  now  present  I  apply  the  words,  however  far  you 
may  have  gone  back  in  the  wicked  way  which  you 
appeared  to  have  forsaken — however  far  your  present 
thoughts  may  be  from  God  and  righteousness — I  call 
upon  you  to  give  ear  to  God's  rebuke  and  invitation : 


ISAIAH  55,  6.  Ij^g 

"  Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way  and  the  mingliteous 
man  his  thoughts,  and  let  him  return  unto  the  Lord." 
This  is  your  only  hope,  and  even  this  may  soon  he 
gone ;  therefore,  "  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  he  may  he 
found,  call  ye  upon  him  while  he  is  near." 

But  it  is  far  from  heing  true,  that  this  appeal  is 
applicable  only  to  backsliders.  However  strictly  un- 
derstood, it  is  appropriate  to  all  mankind.  It  is  true, 
the  word  "  return  "  is  used,  and  this  word  certainly 
implies  departure  from  a  previous  state  of  nearness ; 
and  it  may  at  first  sight  seem,  on  this  account,  inap- 
plicable to  the  mass  of  men ;  for  how,  it  may  be  asked, 
can  they  return  to  Him  from  whom  they  never  have 
departed,  but  from  whom  they  have  always  been 
wholly  alienated  ?  But  this  view  of  the  matter  is  ex- 
tremely superficial.  It  is  true,  most  true,  that  the 
invitation  to  "  return  "  implies  a  previous  departure ; 
and,  can  any  departure  be  more  real  or  deplorable 
than  that  which  involves,  not  merely  individuals,  but 
the  whole  human  family  ?  The  terms  of  the  summons 
do  indeed  point  back  to  that  original  apostasy  under 
the  curse  of  Vvhich  the  whole  race  groans.  When  the 
rebel  is  exhorted  to  return  to  his  allegiance,  the  call 
comes  Avith  emphasis  enhanced,  not  lessened,  to  the 
ears  of  those  who  are  hereditary  traitors,  born  in  re- 
bellion, inheriting  the  taint,  and  living  in  the  practice 
of  notorious  treason  :  such  is  our  condition.  It  is  un- 
der this  double  burden  that  Are  sink  ;  it  is  from  this 
double  penalty  that  we  must  be  delivered;  it  is  there- 
fore to  us  all,  without  exception,  that  this  solemn  call 
is  addressed — "  Return  unto  the  Lord  " — "  Let  the 
wicked  forsake  his  way  and   the  unrighteous  man 


114  SERMONS. 

his  thoughts,  and  let  him  return  unto  the  Lord." 
All  who  are  aliens  from  your  God,  to  you  he  says  this 
day.  Return  !  return !  Return  with  penitent  confes- 
sion of  your  sins,  with  self-renunciation,  with  suhmis- 
sion,  with  a  solemn  consecration  of  yourselves  to 
God  ;  but,  above  all,  and  before  all,  in  the  exercise  of 
faith,  believing  in  the  Saviour,  and  accepting  him  as 
yours.  This  includes  all  the  rest.  Where  this  exists, 
they  follow,  as  a  thing  of  course ;  where  this  exists 
not,  they  are  null  and  void,  without  worth,  nay,  with- 
out existence.  In  the  exercise  of  this  faith,  and  of  that 
repentance  which  has  never  yet  failed  to  accompany  it 
since  the  world  began,  and  of  that  zeal  and  obedience 
which  can  no  more  fail  to  spring  from  such  repentance 
and  such  faith,  than  the  fruit  can  fail  to  spring  from 
the  prolific  seed,  "  Let  the  wdcked  forsake  his  w^ay 
and  the  unrighteous  man  his  thoughts,  and  let  him 
return  unto  the  Lord." 

But  what  is  the  inducement  to  return  which  is 
here  held  out  ?  It  is  man's  jDart  to  forsake  his  evil 
ways  and  thoughts,  to  return  to  God,  to  seek  him, 
and  to  call  upon  him.  Kone  of  these  will  he  do  until 
God  draw  him.  ISTone  of  them  can  he  do  until  God 
enable  him.  But  this  is  true  of  every  service  which 
man  ever  renders.  Though  unable  of  himself  to  do 
these  things,  he  is  still  bound  to  do  them.  It  is  his 
part  to  do  them ;  and  w'hen  he  has  performed  his 
part,  what  does  God  promise  in  return  ?  What  will 
he  do  for  man  ?  He  will  have  mercy  npon  him. 
"  Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way,  and  the  unright- 
eous man  his  thoughts,  and  let  him  return  unto  the 
Lord,  and  he  will  have  mercy  upon  him."     Mercy  is 


ISAIAH  55,  G.  11^ 

the  inducement  offered,  and  mercy  is  precisely  what 
the  sinner  needs.  Nothing  else  can  meet  his  case  but 
this.  Without  this  nothing  can  be  given,  or,  if  given, 
can  do  him  any  good. 

Mercy  implies  two  things,  misery  and  guilt.  In- 
nocent suffering  may  be  relieved  through  pity,  but  it 
cannot,  strictly  speaking,  be  regarded  as  an  object  of 
mercy.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  if  guilt  could  exist 
unaccompanied  by  suffering,  it  might  be  pardoned, 
and  the  sinner  might,  in  that  sense,  be  said  to  obtain 
mercy.  But,  in  strictness  of  speech,  the  term  is  ap- 
plicable only  to  those  cases  in  which  misery  and  guilt 
coexist.  And,  alas  for  us  !  this  is,  without  exception, 
the  condition  of  man.  ISTo  one  sins  without  sufferino-. 
ISTo  man  suffers  without  guilt.  Individual  sufferers 
may  be  innocent  in  reference  to  those  who  imme- 
diately cause  their  sufferings  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
guilt  may,  for  the  present,  seem  to  be  accompanied 
by  pleasure  only.  But  in  due  time  both  these  false 
appearances  will  be  removed.  Everj'  sin  will  be  seen 
to  be  the  necessary  cause  of  sorrow,  and  every  sorrow 
will  be  seen  to  flow  more  or  less  directly  from  sin. 
And,  in  the  meantime,  we  have  no  need  to  look 
further  than  ourselves  for  objects  upon  which  mercy 
may  be  exercised.  In  us,  in  all  of  us,  the  two  pre- 
requisites are  found  abundantly — misery  present  and 
prospective,  the  experience  of  it  here  and  the  dread 
of  it  hereafter — misery  not  produced  by  chance,  but 
by  ourselves — by  sin,  and  that  our  own  sin.  To  us, 
then,  this  inducement  ought  to  be  a  strong  one. 
To  induce,  then,  "the  wicked  to  forsake  his  way,  and 
the  unrighteous  man  his  thoughts,"  and  to  "return 


116  SERMONS. 

unto  the  Lord,"  it  ought  to  be  enough  to  know  that 
that  the  Lord  "  -svill  liave  mercy  upon  him." 

But,  alas !  he  is  insensible  of  his  condition.  The 
more  he  stands  in  need  of  mercy,  the  more  blind  he  is 
to  that  necessity.  By  nature,  man  is  never  prompted 
to  implore  God's  mercy  on  account  of  his  iniquities. 
He  either  asks  nothing,  or  he  cries  for  justice.  While 
he  is  prosperous,  and  life  seems  long,  he  is  content  to 
remain  always  as  he  is.  And  when  death  stares  him 
in  the  face,  or  any  thing  compels  him  to  think  seri- 
ously of  his  end,  he  assumes  the  character  of  injured 
innocence  ;  he  claims  eternal  life  as  the  reward  of  his 
obedience  ;  he  appears  before  God  not  to  plead  for 
mercy,  but  to  demand  justice  ;  and,  with  that  demand 
uj)on  his  lips,  or  in  his  heart,  he  is  often  swept  into 
eternity  to  get  what  he  presumptuously  asked  for. 
Then,  then,  if  not  before,  he  cries  for  mercy  ;  for  that 
very  mercy  which  he  spurned  before,  and  with  that  last 
despairing  cry  upon  his  lips,  he  goes  "  to  his  own  place." 
Such  is  the  end  of  those  who  presumptuously  ask  for 
justice  and  will  not  have  mercy.  But  it  often  pleases 
God  to  undeceive  the  soul  before  it  is  too  late.  And 
then,  when  the  sinner's  eyes  are  opened,  he  beholds 
with  wonder  what  he  never  saw  before ;  he  sees  his 
own  condition,  his  own  guilt — the  misery  to  which  that 
guilt  consigns  him,  and  his  utter  incapacity  to  help 
himself.  Ah,  what  a  change  takes  place  then  in  his 
feelings,  and  the  tone  of  his  addresses  to  the  throne  of 
grace.  He  who  once  called  for  justice  at  the  hand  of 
God,  now  sues  for  mercy.  He  who  once  stood  erect, 
and  said,  "  I  thank  thee,  God,  that  I  am  not  like  other 
men,"  is  now  unable  to  lift  so  much  as  his  eyes  to 


ISAIAH  55,  6.  117 

heaven,  but  smites  iii^on  his  breast,  and  says,  "  God 
be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner."  Is  it  not  better  that  this 
opening  of  the  ejes  shoukl  take  place  now  than  in 
eternity  ?  "  Seek  ye  the  Lord  then  while  he  may  be 
fomid,  call  ye  upon  ]iim  while  he  is  near :  let  the  wicked 
forsake  his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man  his  thoughts, 
and  let  him  return  nnto  the  Lord,  and  he  will  have 
mercy  upon  him,  and  to  our  God^  Do  you  observe 
that  expression,  "  our  God  ?  " — the  phrase  by  which 
the  Jews  expressed  their  covenant  relation  to  Je- 
hovah. As  addressed  to  Jews,  the  phrase  may  be 
understood  to  mean,  that  God  was  still  their  God  by 
a  special  engagement ;  and  that,  notwithstanding  their 
departures  from  him,  if  they  would  forsake  their  evil 
ways  and  thoughts,  and  return  unto  him,  he  would 
have  mercy  upon  them,  as  their  God,  as  their  own 
God,  and  fulfil  the  promises  made  unto  their  fathers. 

But  is  there  any  such  encouragement  to  us  who 
are  sinners  of  the  Gentiles  ?  May  we  return  to  God, 
not  merely  as  an  absolute  and  righteous  sovereign, 
but  as  our  own  God,  bound  to  us  by  covenant,  who 
will  not,  cannot  cast  us  off?  Yes,  we  may,  even  the 
vilest  sinner  who  forsakes  his  evil  courses  and  returns 
to  God,  may  trust  not  only  in  his  sovereign  mercy, 
but  in  the  faithfulness  of  his  engagements.  Even 
such  he  is  bound  by  covenant  and  by  oath  to  save. 
Even  the  poor,  benighted  heathen,  who  has  never 
been  a  sharer  even  in  the  outward  privileges  of  the 
Christian  church,  may  come  and,  as  it  were,  lay  claim 
to  the  salvation  of  the  gospel,  not  in  his  own  right 
but  in  that  of  another.  Yes,  my  hearers,  whtjcver  you 
may  be,  and  however  ignoraut  of  God  and  of  salva- 


118  SERMONS. 

tion  until  now,  if  you  will  but  come  to  him,  and  come 
to  liim  in  the  way  before  described,  if  you  will  but 
come  to  him,  forsaking  your  sins  and  repenting  of 
them,  seeking  him  and  calling  upon  him,  and  believ- 
ing in  him,  then  he  is  yours,  your  Saviour,  and  you 
have  a  right  to  say,  not  only  that  the  Lord  will  have 
mercy  but  that  our  God  will  pardon.  He  will  not 
only  ])ity  and  relieve,  but  pardon ;  he  will  not  only 
pity  and  relieve  distress,  but  pardon  sin.  And  this 
is  absolutely  necessary ;  without  this  there  could  be 
no  real  permanent  relief. 

There  is  no  mercy  opposed  to  justice.  In  the  na- 
ture and  the  works  of  God,  these  attributes  must  har- 
monize. He  cannot  exercise  mercy  until  justice  be 
satisfied.  He  cannot  be  merciful  to  man  until  his 
justice  is  appeased.  But  justice  demands  punish- 
ment. And  man,  if  punished,  must  be  j)unislied 
forever,  because  a  finite  being  cannot  exhaust  the  pen- 
alty of  the  broken  law.  How  then  can  mercy  be  ex- 
tended to  him  ?  Only  by  punishing  another  in  his 
stead.  In  this  substitution  lies  the  sinner's  only  hope. 
God  gives  his  own  Son  to  be  punished  for  him  ;  not 
forever — ah  !  how  would  tiiat  impair  the  rapture  of 
forgiveness  and  salvation ;  not  forever — but  long 
enough  to  answer  the  demand,  through  the  infinite 
dignity  and  merit  of  the  sufi'erer.  In  this  way  and 
in  this  way  only,  God  can  be  just  and  yet  a  justifier. 
In  this  way  he  can  pardon  sin.  In  this  way  he  "will 
pardon  all  who  come  unto  him.  Is  not  this  enough  ? 
Is  not  this  a  sufiicient  earnest  of  his  willingness  to 
save  ?  "  He  that  spared  not  his  own  Son,  but  freely 
gave  him  up  for  us  all,  shall  he  not  with  him  also, 


ISAIAH  55,  6.  119 

freely  give  ns  all  things?"  Come  then,  seek  the 
Lord  and  call  upon  him,  and  that  without  delay.  Seek 
him  while  he  may  be  found ;  call  upon  him  while  he 
is  near.  The  way  you  are  in  is  a  bad  way — a  destruc- 
tive way,  however  it  may  now  appear.  "  There  is  a 
way  that  seemeth  right  unto  a  man,  but  the  end 
thereof  are  the  ways  of  death.  "  But  "  let  the  wicked 
forsake  his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man  his  thoughts, 
and  let  him  return  unto  the  Lord,  and  he  will  have 
mercy  upon  him." 

What  is  there  to  prevent  such  a  return  ?  Does 
guilt  stand  in  the  way  ?  He  has  provided  for  this  dif- 
ficulty. Guilt  is  itself  a  reason  for  returning.  "  He 
will  pardon."  Is  your  guilt  too  great  ?  Too  great 
for  what  ?  To  be  atoned  for  by  yourself?  Yes,  it  is 
indeed,  even  the  least  sin,  such  as  you  took  no  note  of 
at  the  time,  or  have  long  since  forgotten ;  even  the 
least  of  such  sins  is  too  great  for  expiation  by  your- 
self, and  unless  otherwise  atoned  for,  will  rise  up 
hereafter  to  condemn  you,  aye,  will  seize  upon  your 
soul  and  plunge  it  into  endless  ruin.  You  who  are 
wont  to  say  or  think  that  you  are  not  a  great  sinner, 
you  shall  yet  be  made  to  see  that  the  most  despised 
and  trivial  sin,  as  you  esteemed  it,  is  enough  to  slay 
your  soul  forever.  But  if  you  mean  that  your  sins 
are  too  great  for  divine  forgiveness,  that  is  anothei* 
matter.  Even  if  pardon  were  a  mere  sovereign,  ar- 
bitrary act  of  mercy,  without  regard  to  justice,  you 
would  have  no  right  to  limit  the  power  and  compas- 
sion of  a  God.  Much  less  when  pardon  is  in  one 
sense  really  an  act  of  justice,  not  to  you  but  to 
another,  when  the  penalty  is  paid  and  justice  fully 


120  SERMONS. 

satisfied  for  all  believers.  Is  not  tliis  enousrli?  Is 
Christ  not  great  enough  ?  Is  liis  blood  not  rich  enough  ? 
Were  his  jDangs  not  keen  enough  to  pay  your  debt, 
however  great  and  overwhelming  ?  Do  you  not  see 
that  the  fountain  which  is  opened  for  sin  and  un 
cleanness  is  the  fountain  of  Christ's  merit,  and  is, 
therefore,  inexhaustibly  abundant,  so  that  God,  for 
his  sake,  can  not  only  pardon,  but  abundantly  pardon  ? 
— that  Christ's  atonement  is  sufficient  in  itself  for  all, 
however  great  the  multitude,  aye,  and  for  all  the  sms 
of  all  who  ever  sinned,  however  many  and  however 
heinous?  So  that  God,  for  Christ's  sake,  cannot 
only  pardon  but  ahundantly  pardon  ?  And  he  will, 
he  will,  if  he  pardons  at  all,  "  he  will  abundantly 
pardon."  Oh,  then,  hear  the  voice  of  invitation, 
whether  old,  inveterate  offenders  or  beginners  in  the 
ways  of  sin — whether  the  burden  of  your  guilt  be 
overwhelming  or  comparatively  liglit — whether  your 
minds  have  hitherto  been  careless,  or  alarmed  about 
your  state — you  are  all  alike  in  danger  and  in  need 
of  speedy  rescue.  "  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  he  may 
be  found,  call  upon  him  wliile  he  is  near :  let  the 
wicked  forsake  his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man  his 
thoughts,  and  let  him  return  unto  the  Lord,  and  he 
will  have  mercy  upon  him,  and  to  our  God,  for  he 
will  abundantly  pardon.  For  my  thoughts  are  not 
3^our  thoughts,  neither  are  your  wa^^s  ray  ways,  saith 
the  Lord." 

These  last  words  are  connected  with  what  goes 
before,  by  the  conjunction  "  for" — "^rmy  thoughts, 
&c."  To  what  is  this  "  for"  to  be  referred — of  what 
does  it  assign  the  reason  ?     Some  have  thought  that 


ISAIAH  55,  6.  121 

it  relates  to  the  national  prejudices  of  tlie  ancient 
Jews,  to  whom  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles  and  the  ab- 
rogation of  the  Mosaic  system  seemed  impossible 
events,  and  to  whom  the  prophet  may  be  understood 
as  saying — Do  not  imagine  that  because  this  dispen- 
sation has  so  loDg  existed,  it  will  last  forever,  or  that 
because  you  are  so  blindly  attached  to  it,  I  will  not 
be  willing  to  annul  it  when  the  time  for  its  cessation 
shall  arrive — "  for  my  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts, 
neither  are  your  ways  my  ways."  But  however  good 
this  sense  may  in  itself  be,  it  is  far  from  being  obvious 
in  this  connection,  and  refers  the  8tli  verse  to  a  remote 
and  doubtful  antecedent.  Besides,  as  we  have  seen 
before,  the  terms  of  this  whole  passage  cannot  be  un- 
derstood as  having  reference  merely  to  the  Jewish 
dispensation.  Even  if  that  were  the  primary  and 
obvious  sense,  we  have  abundant  reason  and  authority 
to  superadd  another  more  extensive  and  more  spir- 
itual. But  it  is  not  the  primary  and  obvious  sense, 
as  we  have,  seen,  and  it  is  therefore  necessary  to  con- 
nect the  "  for"  with  one  of  the  clauses  of  the  seventh 
verse.  If  with  the  first  clause,  then  the  eighth  verse 
gives  a  reason  for  the  call  to  reformation  and  repent- 
ance— "  Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way,  and  the  un- 
righteous man  his  thoughts — for  my  thoughts  are  not 
your  thoughts,  neither  are  your  ways  my  ways." 
Here  the  same  two  words  are  placed  in  opposition — 
"  ways"  and  "  thoughts" — let  the  wicked,  etc., — i.  e. 
You  cannot  walk  in  my  ways  and  the  ways  of  sin ; 
you  cannot  think  my  thoughts,  and  yet  cherish 
thoughts  of  sin  ;  sin  and  salvation  are  irreconcilable, 
and  you  must  choose  between  them. 

VOL.  II. — G 


122  SERMONS. 

This  is,  to  many  who  would  fain  escape  perdition, 
"  a  hard  saying."  Having  cherished  the  delusive  hope 
that  free  salvation  implies  liberty  to  sin,  they  are 
painfully  surprised  at  tlie  disco-sery  that  God's  ways 
and  thoughts  are  wholly  incompatible  with  theirs. 
They  are  afraid  of  hell,  and  they  are  willing  to  be 
saved  from  it,  but  that  is  all.  That  slavish  fear  is  the 
sum  of  their  religion.  They  must  keep  their  sins.  At 
first  they  plead  for  all  sin,  then  for  some  ;  and  as  one 
after  another  is  torn  from  them  by  the  hand  of  the 
inexorable  law,  although  their  conscience,  now  en- 
lightened, can  no  longer  question  or  deny  the  truth, 
they  hate  what  they  acknowledge,  they  would  gladly 
shut  their  e^'es  upon  the  light  which  has  revealed  to 
them  this  odious  truth ;  and  in  the  vain  hope  of 
escaping  it,  many,  ah,  how  many,  "  draw  back  to  per- 
dition," and  as  they  rush  along  that  downward  course, 
they  still  hear  that  gracious  but  inexorable  voice  cry- 
ing after  them,  "  Turn  ye,  turn  ye,  for  why  will  ye 
die."  I  have  given  my  Son  to  die  for  sinners,  and  all 
who  come  unto  me  through  him  I  will  abundantly 
pardon  ;  but  the  wicked  Tniist  forsake  his  way,  and 
the  unrighteous  man  his  thoughts,  for  my  thoughts 
are  not  your  thoughts,  neither  ai'e  your  ways  my 
ways — there  is,  there  can  be  no  communion  between 
light  and  darkness,  between  Christ  and  Belial.  Ah, 
my  hearers,  God  only  knows  in  how  many  ears  this 
expostulating  voice  has  rung,  and  rung  in  vain  ;  how 
many  sinners  on  the  verge  of  death  have  stopped  their 
ears  against  it,  or  at  most  have  paused  and  listened, 
with  one  foot  upon  the  precipice,   perhaps   [toked 


ISAIAH  55,  e.  123 

back,  and  even  ^vavel•ecl  with  a  momentary  impulse 
to  return,  and  then  forever  disappeared. 

But  there  are  others  whom  divine  grace  has  ar- 
rested, even  those  uj^on  the  dizzy  verge  of  that  abyss, 
and  made  to  hear  the  M^arning  voice,  and  see  the 
saving  light  as  it  shines  upon  this  fundamental  truth, 
that  sin  must  be  forsaken  or  the  sinner  cannot  possibly 
be  saved.  But  this  conviction  often  generates  a  new 
doubt  of  another  kind — I  see  it  to  be  not  only  true 
but  right  tliat  sin  must  be  left,  or  God  cannot  pardon ; 
but  can  he  pardon  even  then,  or  if  he  can,  will  he 
pardon,  will  he  pardon  me  ?  Can  he,  will  he,  pardon 
so  abundantly  that  I  shall  be  included  ?  This  mis- 
giving, under  Satan's  artful  and  malignant  influence, 
would  drive  men  to  despair,  unless  the  grace  of  God 
prevent.  The  soul  admits  the  freeness  and  sufferings 
of  Christ's  atonement  as  a  truth  revealed,  but  rejects 
it  practically  against  itself ;  it  makes  a  merit  of  its 
unbelief,  the  cross  ftides  from  its  view,  its  light  begins 
to  disappear,  the  invitations  of  the  gospel  are  less 
audible,  and  at  this  crisis,  some  who  did  not  sink  be- 
fore, sink  now  forever;  but  to  others,  when  the  voice 
of  man  is  hushed,  the  voice  of  God  becomes  more 
audible — a  voice  both  of  reproof  and  encouragement 
— "Who  art  thou,  O  man,  that  rcpliest  against  God? 
Thou  thoughtest  that  I  Avas  altogether  such  an  one  as 
thyself."  It  is  not  man  who  pardons,  it  is  God.  It 
is  not  you  who  merit,  it  is  Christ.  As  long  as  you 
stay  away  from  him,  nothing  is  pardoned,  not  even 
the  least  sin,  it  will  sting  your  soul  ibrever  ;  but  come, 
and  all  is  pardoned,  abundantly  pardoned.  "  Let  the 
wicked  forsake  his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man  his 


124 


SERMONS. 


thoughts,  and  let  him  return  unto  the  Lord,  and  hQ 
will  liave  mercy  upon  him,  and  to  our  God,  for  he 
will  abundantly  pardon.  For  my  thoughts  are  not 
your  thoughts,  neither  are  your  ways  my  ways,  saith 
the  Lord." 

Man  may  be  unforgiving  when  he  is  not  just.  God 
can  be  just,  and  yet  not  unforgiving.  Oh,  glorious 
difierence !  Man  can  be  himself  unjust,  and  yet  con- 
demn the  innocent.  God  can  be  just,  and  yet  justify  the 
guilty.  Judge  not  God  by  man.  Judge  not  his  mercy  by 
the  compassions  of  his  erring  creatures.  The  tender 
mercies  of  the  wicked  are  cruel.  "Well,  then,  may  he 
say  to  those  who  find  such  mercy  too  stupendous  to  be 
trusted  in, "  my  thoughts  are  not  as  your  thoughts,"  &c. 
God  pardons  nothing,  or  he  pardons  all.  Let  the  con- 
victed sinner  cease  to  doubt — let  him  cease  to  linger, 
for  any  reason  or  on  any  pretext — let  him  cease  to 
call  in  question  either  his  danger  or  his  guilt — let  him 
cease,  on  the  other  hand,  to  make  its  greatness  an  ex- 
cuse for  unbelief  or  a  pretext  for  despair  ; — but  since 
he  is  in  danger,  imminent  danger — since  deliverance 
from  it  is  so  freely  oifered — since  the  grace  which 
offers  it  is  limited  in  time— since  that  grace  will  not 
save  men  in  sin,  but  will  freely  save  them  from  sin — 
since  it  will  pardon  sin  itself  to  the  believer,  and 
whenever  it  pardons  at  all,  will  abundantly  pardon 
even  the  chief  of  sinners — however  foreign  such  for- 
giveness may  be  from  human  passions  and  human  feel- 
ings, let  the  sinner  hesitate  and  doubt  no  longer — 
"  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  he  may  bo  found,  call  ye 
upon  him  while  he  is  near :  let  the  wicked  forsake 
his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man  his  thoughts,  and 


/ 


ISAIAH  55,  6.  125 

let  him  return  unto  the  Lord,  and  he  will  have  mercy 
upon  him,  and  to  our  God,  for  he  will  abundantly  par- 
don :  for  my  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither 
are  your  ways  my  ways,  saith  the  Lord :  for  as  the 
heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  my  ways 
higher  tlian  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  your 
thoughts." 


VII. 


Philippians  S,  13.  14. — Bretlircn,  I  count  not  myself  to  have  ap- 
prehended :  but  this  one  thing  I  do,  forgetting  those  things  which  arc 
behind,  and  reaching  forth  unto  those  things  which  are  before,  I  press 
towards  the  niarli  for  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus. 

Without  attempting  any  formal  exposition  of  the 
text  or  context,  and  without  enlarging  on  the  obvious 
allusion  to  the  ancient  games,  from  which  the  sacred 
writers  borrow  many  of  their  strongest  figures,  such 
as  that  of  pressing  forward  to  a  marli  for  a  jprize  in 
the  case  before  us,  I  propose  to  call  your  attention, 
for  a  short  time,  to  the  doctrine  here  suggested  by  the 
apostle's  own  example,  and  explicitly  taught  else- 
where, that  religion  in  the  heart  is  a  progressive  prin- 
ciple— a  principle  impelling  to  progressive  holiness  ; 
and  that  not  merely  by  a  positive  appointment,  but 
from  its  nature,  and  the  nature  of  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  operates — that  this  progressive  char- 
acter affords  the  only  satisfactory  evidence  that  piety 
exists  at  all,  and  is  therefore  necessary,  not  to  an  ab- 
solute assurance  merely,  but  to  a  comfortable  hope ; 
and  finally,  that  this  new  disposition  to  forget  what  is 


PHILIPPIANS  3,  13.  14.  127 

behind,  and  reach  forth  to  that  before,  is  a  chief 
source  of  liappiness  to  Christians  here,  and  is  to  be  a 
laro-e  inirredient  of  their  blessedness  hereafter. 

In  alleging  that  progress  is  essential  to  true  pietj, 
it  is  not,  of  course,  intended  to  affirm  that  this  essen- 
tial progress  is  at  all  times  equally  discernible  and 
marked,  or  that  it  can  at  any  time  be  measured  step 
by  step ;'  but  merely  that  the  changes  which  the  soul 
is  ever  undergoing  are,  in  the  case  of  true  conversion, 
on  the  whole,  in  one  direction — to  deny  which,  on  tho 
ground  of  certain  fluctuations,  or  because  we  cannot 
measure  and  compute  the  progress  with  unerring  ac- 
curacy, would  be  as  absurd  as  to  remain  upon  the 
beach  at  the  mercy  of  a  rising  tide,  because  the  mo- 
tion of  the  waves,  when  separately  looked  at,  is  not 
uniform.  If  it  be  true  in  this  case,  that  in  spite  of  all 
apparent  reflux,  the  sea  is  sfill  encroaching  steadily 
upon  the  land,  until  it  reaches  that  mysterious  point 
at  which  God  says  to  it.  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come, 
and  no  further,  and  here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be 
stayed ;  it  is  no  less  true  that  genuine  religion  in  the 
heart,  in  spite  of  all  its  seeming  fluctuations,  rises  and 
still  rises,  and  that  this  rise  must  at  some  intervals, 
greater  or  smaller,  become  visible  and  palpable,  and 
may  not  therefore  be  assumed  at  pleasure,  when  ajv 
pearances,  not  only  in  some  one  case,  but  in  every 
case,  and  always,  are  entirely  against  it.  Let  no  man 
therefore  judge  his  neighbour  as  a  hypocrite,  because 
he  thinks  he  sees  a  retrograde  movement  as  to  some 
particular,  or  on  some  occasion ;  nor  let  any  man  ad- 
judge himself  a  saint,  and  cherish  the  belief  that  the 
standard  of  his  piety  is  rising  in  the  gross  when  it  is 


128  SERMONS. 

evidently  sinking  in  detail ;  but  where  we  see  another 
making  progress  from  year  to  year,  or  month  to  month, 
if  not  from  week  to  week,  or  day  to  day,  let  us  thank 
God  for  the  grace  that  is  given  unto  him ;  and  when, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  find  ourselves  from  day  to  day, 
or  week  to  week,  receding,  let  us  not  dream  that  at 
tlie  month's  end,  or  the  year's  end,  the  defect  will 
cure  itself,  or  even  that  past  attainments  will  atone  for 
future  losses  ;  but  forgetting  that  which  is  behind, 
let  us  reach  forth  to  that  which  is  before. 

The  authority  of  Scripture  is  sufficient  to  establish 
that  the  fact  alleged,  as  to  the  progressive  nature  of 
religion,  is  so.  That  it  must  be  so,  may  be  further  ar- 
gued from  the  nature  of  the  subject  in  which  the 
change  is  wrought — from  the  nature  of  the  cause  by 
which  it  is  eflected — from  the  nature  of  the  means 
employed  in  its  production — from,  the  nature  of  the 
end  designed  to  be  effected — and  from  the  nature  of 
the  change  itself  so  far  as  it  can  be  distinctly  scruti- 
nized. 

And  first,  it  may  be  argued  from  the  nature  of  the 
subject,  which  is  man,  an  active  being,  one  essen- 
tially active.  As  the  soul,  anterior  to  conversion,  was 
in  progress,  going  from  one  degree  of  evil  to  another, 
strengthening  its  habits,  settling  its  judgments,  fixing 
its  afifections,  so  it  may  and  must  be  expected  to  make 
progress  in  the  new  direction  given  to  it,  unless  there 
be  something  in  the  very  nature  of  a  saving  change 
adverse  to  such  a  process  ;  but  this,  as  we  shall  see, 
is  so  far  from  being  true,  that  what  may  be  said  of 
the  natural  condition  of  the  soul,  may  be  still  more 
emphatically  said  of  its  new  state — that  it  cannot  be 


PHILIPPIANS  3,  13.  14.  129 

happy  witliout  j^rogress ;  nay,  that  whether  happy  or 
not,  it  cannot  exist  without  progress,  because  it  can- 
not exist  without  some  exercise  of  its  powers  and  af- 
fections; and  this  very  exercise  gives  strength,  and 
this  increase  of  strength  is  progress.  Because  man, 
then,  is  the  subject  of  the  change  which  takes  place 
in  conversion,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  new 
character  imparted  to  the  soul  will  not  continue  as  it 
is,  but  constantly  become  more  marked  and  perma- 
nent. 

The  same  thing  seems  to  follow  from  the  nature  of 
the  power  which  effects  the  change.  If  this  effect 
could  be  ascribed  to  chance,  or  to  a  momentary  im- 
pulse, it  might  be  expected  to  continue  as  it  is  at  first, 
or  even  to  cease  and  disappear  ;  but  when  the  power 
of  God,  almighty  and  unceasing,  is  the  sole  efiicient 
cause  of  what  we  call  conversion,  it  seems  unreasona- 
ble to  suppose  that  that  cause  is  to  operate  forever,  or 
even  for  a  time,  with  a  view  merely  to  the  sustenta- 
tion  of  these  faint  beginnings  of  a  spiritual  life  which 
we  experience  within  us.  If  the  spark  which  grace 
has  kindled  had  been  left  to  itself,  or  to  the  feeble 
breath  of  mortals  to  preserve  it,  wo  might  well  sup- 
pose that  nothing  more  than  its  continued  existence 
was  intended  ;  but  when  we  find  an  unbroken  current 
of  life-giving  air  from  the  breath  of  the  Almighty 
brought  to  play  upon  that  spark,  wc  may  conclude 
with  safety  that  it  was  meant  to  glow  and  kindle  to  a 
flame,  and  that  the  flame  was  meant  to  rise  and  spread, 
and  to  become  a  conflagration  ;  so  that  wliat  at  first 
was  but  a  seed  of  fire,  smothered  in  ashes,  drenched 
in  rain,  or  blown  at  random  by  the  viewless  winds, 

VOL.  II. — 6* 


130  SERMONS. 

shall  yet  light  up  the  M'hole  horizon,  and  dye  the  very 
heavens  with  its  crimson. 

Look  again  at  the  means  which  are  emj)loyed  for 
the  imj)lauting  of  religion  in  the  soul,  and  jndge  by 
these  whether  it  was  intended  to  be  shortlived  or  sta- 
tionary. If  we  fonnd  no  other  means  employed  but 
those  of  a  natural  and  ordinary  nature,  such  as  human 
wisdom  might  devise  and  human  power  set  in  mo- 
tion, then  we  might  plausibly  infer,  that  what  we 
now  have  in  possession  is  the  whole  that  God  in- 
tended to  bestow  upon  us,  and  might  strive  to  rest 
contented  with  our  actual  attainments.  But,  my 
hearers,  could  it  be  to  keep  alive  such  piety  as  you 
and  I  possess,  without  improvement  or  increase,  that 
God  the  Father  gave  his  Son  to  die,  and  that  God  the 
Son  assumed  our  nature,  took  our  place,  paid  our 
debt,  and  bore  our  chastisement?  Was  it  that  you 
and  I  might  be  forever  what  we  now  are,  even  grant- 
ing that  our  hopes  of  salvation  were  well-founded? 
Is  it  for  this  that  the  Almighty  Spirit  bloweth  where 
it  listeth,  and  though  grieved  from  many  a  hard 
heart,  returns  and  lights  again  that  spark  which  sin 
quenched,  and  opens  the  blind  eyes,  and  teaches  the 
poor  stammering  tongue  of  the  wn*etched  sinner  how 
to  pray  ;  yea,  itself  maketh  intercession  for  him,  with 
groanings,  with  groanings  that  cannot  be  uttered  ? 
Is  there  not  in  the  seeming  p)rodigality  of  means  so 
infinite,  so  godlike,  a  presumptive  proof  that  these 
efiects  which  we  experience  are  but  partial  and  in- 
choate ;  that  the  end  is  not  yet ;  and  that  it  doth  not 
yet  appear  what  we  shall,  what  we  must  be,  to  attain 
not  only  the  great  end  of  our  existence,  but  the  end 


PEILIPriANS  3,  13.  14.  131 

for  Y/liieli  a  soYereigii  God  lias  moTed  all  lieayen  and, 
as  it  were,  poured  liimself  out  upon  creatures  ?  O  my 
brethren,  if  such  arc  the  means  which  God  has  nsed 
to  bring  us  thus  far,  we  must  not  stop  here,  we  must 
go  on,  we  must  go  on,  wc  must  forget  what  is  behind, 
we  must  reach  forth  to  that  which  is  before.  He- 
member,  too,  that  such  an  agent  cannot  use  such 
means  without  a  purpose,  and  an  adequate  purpose. 

AVliat  then  is  the  end  for  which  this  change  is 
wrought,  if  wrought  at  all  ?  Kot  mere  deliverance 
from  present  pain.  Tliat  does  not  always  follow  in 
fact,  and  if  it  did,  wonld  be  wholly  disproportioned 
to  the  power  working,  and  the  means  employed. 
Not  mere  deliverance  from  future  misery,  for  that  is 
still  inadequate.  Not  even  man's  restoration,  though 
this  is  infinitely  more  and  better  than  the  others  ;  bnt 
it  is  not  all.  If  the  ultimate  end  of  all  this  were  in 
man,  he  w^ould  usurp  God's  place :  there  cannot  be 
two  Gods — there  cannot  be  two  last  great  ends  to  be 
accomplished  ;  it  is  all  for  God  or  none — it  is  for  God 
— it  is  for  God — it  is  for  his  praise  and  glory  that  the 
whole  work  is  accomplished.  And,  my  hearers,  can 
it  be  that  the  whole  tribute  of  our  rational  and  spir- 
itual natures  to  the  honour  of  our  Maker,  is  this  feeble, 
faint  beginning  of  spiritual  life  which  we  profess  to 
feel  within  us?  Is  this  all?  O  if  Almighty  power, 
and  benevolence,  and  wisdom  have  provided  a  sacri- 
fice of  infinite  merit,  and  a  spiritual  influence  of 
boundless  efficacy,  and  have  brought  these  means  to 
bear  upon  our  miserable  souls,  not  for  our  own  sakes, 
but  that  God  may  be  honoured  by  our  restoration 
to  the  knowledge  and  enjoyment  of  the  highest  good  ; 


1^2  SERMONS. 

where  shall  tlie  limits  of  that  knowledge  and  enjoy- 
ment be  assigned,  so  long  as  God  is  God,  his  praise 
the  end  of  our  existence,  and  his  desert  of  praise  as 
endless  as  his  being  ?  O  my  hearers,  if  we  are  saved 
to  honour  God,  and  if  we  can  never  honour  him 
enough,  surely  we  may  not,  dare  not  think  of  remain- 
ing as  we  are,  if  that  were  possible.  Surely,  if  we 
would  answer  the  great  end  of  our  salvation,  we  must 
forget  that  which  is  behind,  and  reach  forth  to  that 
which  is  before. 

Once  more  the  nature  of  the  change  itself^  so  far 
as  Scripture  and  experience  reveal  it,  shows  that  it  is 
but  an  incipient  change,  and  must  be  carried  on  for- 
ever. What  does  the  change  consist  in  ?  ISTot  in  any 
thing  external,  not  in  any  thing  corporeal,  but  in  the 
mind,  and  yet  not  in  the  structure  of  the  mind  ;  not 
in  the  creation  of  new  faculties  or  in  the  destruction 
of  old  ones,  but  in  new  desires,  dispositions,  and  affec- 
tions. Tliese  must  have  their  objects,  and  their  act- 
ings on  these  objects  must  increase  their  strength, 
enlarge  their  scope,  and  stimulate  their  energies.  If 
God  then  has  created  new  desires  within  us,  or  the 
desire  of  new  objects,  to  wit,  holiness,  and  truth,  and 
God  himself,  and  if  these  new  desires  from  their  very 
nature  reproduce  themselves,  and  if  this  process  can- 
not possibly  be  cut  short  by  the  failure  of  the  objects 
which  are  infinite,  then  surely  from  the  very  nature 
of  the  change  which  God  has  wi'ought  upon  us  if  we 
are  converted,  we  not  only  may,  but  must  go  on.  If 
we  are  changed  at  all,  we  must  be  changed  still  fur- 
ther. K  we  are  not  what  we  once  were,  if  we  have 
left  as  it  were  ourselves  behind,  we  must  forget  our- 


PHILIPPIANS  3,  13.  14.  133 

selves,  we  must  forget  what  is  beliind,  we  must  recacli 
Ibrtli  to  that  which  is  before.  Tlius  from  the  natm-e 
of  the  subject  of  the  change,  viz.,  the  soul  of  man ; 
fj-om  the  nature  of  the  power  by  which  the  change  is 
wrouglit,  viz.,  the  power  of  God ;  from  the  nature  of 
the  means  employed,  viz.,  the  death  of  Christ  to  save 
from  deatli  and  purchase  life,  and  the  influence  of  the 
Spirit  to  produce  life  in  us ;  from  the  nature  of  the 
end  proposed,  viz.,  the  endless  glory  of  an  infinite 
being ;  and  from  the  essential  nature  of  the  change 
itself,  consisting  in  such  a  new  creation  and  direction 
of  the  powers  as  must  necessarily  result  in  spiritual 
progression  ;  from  all  this,  as  well  as  from  tlie  express 
declarations  of  the  "Word  of  God,  confirmed  by  the 
experience  of  all  true  converts,  it  is  plain,  it  is  certain, 
that  whoever  has  come  thus  far,  must  go  further ;  that 
no  one  may,  or  can  rely  upon,  or  be  contented  with, 
that  which  is  bcliind,  but  must  forget  that  which  is 
behind,  and  still  reach  forth  to  that  which  is  before. 

It  seems  to  me  that  these  considerations  are  abun- 
dantly sufficient  to  evince,  that  the  divine  intention 
in  efi'ecting  such  a  change  as  some  of  us  profess  to 
have  experienced  is,  that  we  should  go  on  further  and 
forever  glorifying  God  by  new  degrees  jf  holiness  and 
new  acts  of  obedience.  And  uidess  we  are  prepared 
to  disown  the  authority  of  that  God  who  is  not  only 
our  Creator  but  our  Saviour,  we  must  humbly  ac- 
knowledge that  a  solemn  and  eternal  obligation  rests 
upon  us,  no  matter  what  we  have  attained  or  may 
attain  hereafter ;  to  forget,  in  a  certain  sense,  all  that 
is  behind,  and  to  reacli  forth  to  that  which  is  before. 
But  it  has  pleased  God  to  enforce  those  obligations 


134  SERMONS. 

under  wliich  Lis  sole  authority  suffices  to  lay  us,  by 
showing  us  liow  clearly  our  own  interest  depends  not 
only  on  obedience  to  his  will  in  general,  but  on  sub- 
mission to  his  Avill  in  this  particular,  and  on  a  cheer- 
ful co-operation  with  it.  In  the  case  before  us,  this 
is  clear  from  the  fact,  that  if  progress  is  essential  to 
the  very  nature  of  a  saving  change,  there  can,  of 
course,  be  no  proof  of  its  havmg  taken  place,  in  which 
this  circumstance  is  not  involved.  The  present  is 
transitory  ;  w^hat  is  future  now  will  be  past  in  a  mo- 
ment, and  so  on  forever.  Before  us  and  behind  us 
stretch  the  future  and  the  past.  Our  hopes  and  fears 
from  their  very  nature  have  relation  to  the  future,  yet 
we  seek  to  found  them  upon  something  in  the  past. 
Even  while  we  lean  forward  with  intense  anxiety  to 
scan  tlie  future,  we  still  cast  a  longing,  lingering  look 
behind,  at  something  tliere  on  which  to  fasten  as  a 
ground  of  hope.  So,  in  seeking  to  satisfy  ourselves 
that  w^e  have  undergone  the  change  which  is  essential 
to  salvation,  we  accumulate  and  lioard  up  our  exj^e- 
riences,  even  when  their  emptiness  is  proved  by  sub- 
sequent events :  our  native  disposition  is  to.  trust  in 
that  which  is  behind,  whereas  the  Scriptures  teach  us 
to  tread  upon  it,  that  we  may  rise  higher,  and  instead 
of  believing  that  all  will  be  well  hereafter,  because 
we  thought  that  all  was  well  some  time  ago,  to  grap- 
ple with  futurity  itself,  to  hasten  towards  the  consum- 
mation of  our  course,  not  by  recalling  what  W'c  once 
thought  and  felt,  but  by  thinking  now  and  feeling 
now  as  God  requires  us  to  think  and  feel  with  respect 
to  wliat  is  coming. 

We  are  like  one  sailing  down  a  rapid  stream,  in- 


PHILIPPIANS  3,  13.  14.  135 

tensely  anxious  as  to  tlie  issue  of  our  voyage,  and 
fearful  of  the  dangers  wliicli  await  us,  and  yet  turning 
our  backs  on  both,  and  trying  to  derive  encourage 
ment  from  gazing  at  that  j)ortion  of  our  course 
already  past,  and  every  moment  growing  less  and  less 
visible.  Of  what  avail,  to  such  a  mariner,  is  even  a 
distinct  view  of  some  distant  point  long  since  swept 
by,  when  his  vessel  is  approaching  some  perilous  pass, 
or  passing  through  some  vast  and  foaming  estuary 
into  the  deep  sea.  O  surely  it  is  then  time  to  forget 
what  is  past,  and  to  bend  forward,  to  reach  forth  to 
that  which  is  before.  My  hearers,  we  may  please 
ourselves  with  other  proofs  of  piety,  but  if  we  would 
be  well  assured  that  we  have  moved  at  all  from  our 
original  position,  we  must  move  still  further.  We 
may  spend  our  lives  in  measuring  or  guessing  at  the 
distance  passed  already,  but  the  strongest  assurance 
of  our  having  come  to  any  given  point  in  the  ap- 
pointed course,  is  furnished  by  our  travelling  beyond 
it  to  another.  Are  you  doubtful  whether  you  have 
come  as  far  as  you  imagine  ?  then  go  further.  Are 
you  doubtful  whether  you  possess  as  much  religion  as 
you  fain  would  tliink  ?  then  try  to  possess  more,  and 
the  attainment  of  the  greater  will  involve  the  attain- 
ment of  the  less.  To  you  especially,  my  hearers,  who 
believe  that  you  have  lately  found  the  entrance  to 
the  way  everlasting,  and  yet  can  scarcely  believe 
you  have  passed  through  it,  make  assurance  doubly 
sure  by  leaving  the  entrance  door  afar  behind 
you.  K  you  would  have  a  satisfactory  persuasion 
that  the  world,  and  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  are  for- 
saken, you  must  attain  it  not  by  standing  still,  and 


23g  SERMONS. 

looking  at  your  past  course  either  with  complacency 
or  doubt,  but  by  forgetting  that  wliicli  is  behind,  and 
reaching  forth  to  that  which  is  before. 

God,  by  making  this  the  only  solid  ground  of  con- 
fidence that  yoTi  are  saved,  has  shut  you  up  to  the 
necessity  of  progress,  has  compelled  you  to  move  on, 
if  you  would  know  and  be  assured  that  you  have 
moved  at  all.  And  thus  he  brings  your  personal 
anxieties,  and  care  for  your  own  safety,  to  enforce  the 
obligation  of  a  duty  which,  although  you  could  not 
utterly  neglect  it,  might  have  been  too  carelessly  per- 
formed. ISTot  only  because  God  commands  it,  but 
because  you  cannot  otherwise  be  sure  of  your  conver- 
sion, you  must  learn  to  forget  that  which  is  behind, 
and  to  reach  forth  to  that  which  is  before. 

But  there  is  yet  another  way  in  which  the  same 
thing  is  accomplished.  All  that  has  just  been  said 
would  be  true,  if  stagnation  or  repose  in  religious 
life  were  possible.  I  have  hitherto  proceeded  on  the 
supposition  that  the  only  alternative  is  progress  or 
stagnation  ;  that  the  worst  which  can  befall  the  soul 
which  will  not  go  on  is,  that  it  must  stand  still.  And 
I  have  tried  to  show  that  even  then  it  would  be  ag- 
gravated sin  and  folly  not  to  advance.  But  O  how 
unspeakably  is  this  conclusion  strengthened  by  the 
fact  which  I  have  hitherto  left  out  of  view,  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  standing  still,  or  resting  on  your 
oars.  Forward  or  backward,  up  or  down  the  stream, 
you  must  and  will  go.  Yes,  my  hearers,  reason  and 
experience  but  echo  the  instructions  of  God's  word  as 
to  this  momentous  truth,  and  I  call  them  both  to  wit- 
neas,  to  set  to  their  seal,  that  God  is  true,  when  he 


PHILIPPIANS  3,  13.  14.  jg'^ 

declares  that  from  liim  that  hath  not,  i.  e.  hatli  not 
more  abundantly,  who  does  not  gain,  who  does  not 
make  advances,  shall  be  taken  away  even  that  he 
hath. 

It  would  be  easy  to  show  from  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  our  nature,  and  the  circumstances  in  which 
we  are  placed,  the  reason  of  this  universal  fact ;  but 
I  choose  rather  to  appeal  to  your  experience,  and  ask 
you  when  you  ever  wilfully  neglected  or  ceased  to 
use  the  means  of  improvement  without  a  positive  de- 
terioration. Let  us  take  it  for  granted,  as  we  safely 
may,  that  the  choice  is  not  between  onward  motion 
and  repose,  but  between  onward  motion  and  recession. 
Will  the  convalescent  choose  to  be  a  convalescent  all 
his  life,  instead  of  seeking  to  regain  his  health  ? 
Does  he  not  know  that  unless  he  soon  regains  it,  he 
may  look  for  a  relapse,  and  for  peril  of  death  greater 
than  before.  He  does,  he  does,  and  so  may  you,  my 
hearers.  God  has  shut  you  up  to  the  necessity  of 
going  on,  by  limiting  your  choice  to  that  or  going 
bf>,",k;  by  showing  you  that  motion  cannot  be  avoided; 
that  you  must  rise  or  sinlc ;  that  you  must  grow  worse 
•uv  better ;  that  you  must  draw  nearer  to  God,  or  be 
driven  further  from  him ;  that  3^011  must  love  him 
more  than  you  do  now,  or  love  him  less ;  that  you 
must  go  on  and  live,  or  go  back  and  die ;  that  however 
unprepared  you  may  have  been  for  the  necessity  now 
laid  upon  you,  however  far  you  have  been  from  fore- 
seeing the  solemnity  and  j^eril  of  the  juncture  where 
you  now  are,  it  is  even  so,  it  is  too  late  to  seek  another 
choice,  another  alternative ;  you  are  shut  up  forever 
to  this  one,  you  must  either  forget  what  is  before,  re- 


138  SERMONS. 

trace  your  stops,  repent  of  your  repentfvnce,  and  go 
back  to  tliat  wliicli  is  behind  ;  or,  on  tlie  other  band, 
forgetting  that  which  is  behind,  you  must  reach  forth 
to  that  which  is  before. 

And  now,  my  hearers,  how  are  you  disposed  to 
regard  this  law  of  the  new  life,  which  forbids  not  only 
retrocession  but  repose  ;  which  insists  upon  perpetual 
jjrogression,  and  accepts  of  nothing  short  of  this  pro- 
gression as  conclusiye  eyidence  of  its  own  existence  ? 
Are  you  ready  to  say,  as  the  disciples  said  of  old, 
"  this  is  a  hard  saying,  who  can  hear  it  ?  "  Are  you 
ready  like  some  of  them  to  go  back  from  the 
Saviour  and  walk  no  more  with  him  ?  Ah  !  consider 
w^hat  you  do,  and  if  such  thoughts  rise  within  you, 
crush  them,  I  pray  you,  in  their  yery  birth.  For  I 
assure  you  that  this,  so  far  from  being  cruel,  is  a  mer- 
ciful economy,  required  not  only  by  God's  honour 
but  your  interest ;  a  dispensation  tending  purely  and 
directly  to  your  highest  happiness  in  time  and  in 
eternity,  so  that  if  you  could  but  see  its  operation  and 
its  issue  you  would  rather  die  than  be  subjected  to  a 
different  constitution,  i.  e.  one  which  should  allow 
you  to  go  backwards  and  to  stagnate  instead  of 
urging  you  foreyer  onwards.  And  you  would  thus 
choose,  not  because  you  felt  yourself  constrained  to 
sacrifice  a  present  and  inferior  good  for  a  greater  one 
still  future  ;  not  because  you  were  enabled  by  Diyine 
grace  to  forego  all  ease  and  happiness  at  present,  lest 
you  should  finally  come  short  of  it  foreyer,  but  be- 
cause you  would  perceiye  in  this  "  hard  saying,"  this 
inexorable  law  of  progress,  an  exhaustless  source  of 
purest  satisfaction,  an  unfaltering  incitement   to  ex- 


1 


PniLIPPIANS  3,  13.  14.  139 

ertion,  an  ubinidant  consolation  under  trials.  Yes,  the 
trials  of  the  Cliristian  would  be  hard  indeed  to  bear, 
bitter  alike  in  blossom  and  in  fruit,  if  it  were  not  for 
this  new-born  and  immortal  disposition  to  know  more, 
to  do  more,  to  rise  higher,  to  grow  better,  to  grow 
more  like  God,  to  approach  nearer  to  him,  and  the 
accompanying  disposition  to  regard  the  past,  not  past 
sins,  but  past  attainments,  as  a  mere  fulcrum,  a  mere 
stepping-stone,  a  round  upon  the  spiritual  ladder,  by 
which  higher  things  may  be  attained. 

But  this  conviction,  reasonably  as  it  might  be 
founded  on  the  daily  experience  of  its  efficacy  even  in 
the  least  affairs  of  life,  cannot  be  felt  in  all  its  strength 
until  it  is  obtruded,  forced  upon  the  mind,  by  the 
working  of  the  self-same  principle  in  great  emergen- 
cies and  critical  junctures ;  as  for  instance  when  the 
mind  is  first  awakened  by  the  Spirit  to  a  sense  of  sin. 
Kemember,  O  remember,  when  that  light  first  beamed 
into  your  soul  with  an  intolerable  brightness,  and  you 
saw  yourself,  your  heart,  your  past  life,  your  innumer- 
able sins,  set  before  }'ou  in  a  light  which  you  could 
neither  bear  nor  shut  your  eyes  upon.  Eecur  to  that 
point  of  your  spiritual  history,  recall  the  feelings 
Avhich  that  retrospect  produced ;  the  shame,  the  sor- 
row, the  remorse,  the  self-abhorrence,  and  I  do  not  ask 
you  whether  you  could  then  have  consented  to  re- 
main in  that  abyss  of  filth  and  darkness  where  you 
saw  yourself  to  have  been  rolling  till  the  voice  of 
God  aroused  you,  and  a  light  from  heaven  showed 
you  your  condition  ;  for  with  such  views  that  would 
be  impossible.  You  could  not  thus  repent  of  your  re- 
pentance, and  become  your  former  self  again.     But  I 


X40  SERMONS. 

ask  you  whether  you  could  have  consented,  or  whether 
you  can  wish  that  you  had  been  left  to  languish  and 
to  stagnate  till  the  end  of  life  ;  not  indeed  within  that 
slough,  but  just  without  it,  on  its  verge,  in  sight  of  it, 
in  sight  of  nothing  better ;  safe,  safe,  but  only  safe 
without  the  power  or  desire  of  onward  progress ; 
chained  for  a  lifetime  to  the  contemplation  of  what 
you  had  been  ;  forced  to  look  upon  the  hideous  cor- 
ruption of  your  former  state,  without  relapsing  into 
it,  but  at  the  same  time  without  getting  further  from 
it  than  at  the  moment  of  your  actual  deliverance ;  a 
shipwi-ecked  sailor  chained  to  the  rock  on  which  he 
had  found  refuge ;  a  convalescent  leper,  bound  at  the 
threshold  of  the  lazar  house,  whose  poison  he  had 
been  for  years  inhaling.  Could  you  have  borne  it  ? 
No,  my  hearer,  you  could  not.* 

*  The  conclusion  of  this  sermon  is  wanting. 


YIII. 

Luke  18,  1-8. — And  be  spake  a  parable  unto  them  to  tins  end,  that 
men  ought  always  to  pray,  and  not  to  faint;  saying,  There  was  in  a 
city  a  judge,  which  feared  not  God,  neither  regarded  man  :  And  there 
was  a  widow  in  that  city ;  and  she  came  unto  him,  saying,  Avenge  me 
of  mine  adversary.  And  he  would  not  for  a  while  :  but  afterward  he 
said  within  himself,  Though  I  fear  not  God,  nor  regard  man ;  yet  be- 
cause this  widow  troubleth  me,  I  will  avenge  her,  lest  by  her  continual 
coming  she  weary  me.  And  the  Lord  said,  Hear  what  the  unjust 
judge  saith.  And  shall  not  God  avenge  his  own  elect,  which  cry  day 
and  night  unto  him,  though  he  bear  long  with  them  ?  I  tell  you  that 
he  will  avenge  them  speedily.  Nevertheless,  when  the  Son  of  man 
cometh,  shall  he  find  faith  on  the  earth  ? 

All  is  not  easy  that  appears  so  to  a  liastj,  super - 
iicial  observation,  which  is  apt  to  mistake  the  sim- 
plicity of  strength  for  the  simplicity  of  weakness. 
The  most  wonderful  discoveries,  when  once  made, 
may  seem  obvious.  The  highest  creations  of  genius 
appear  level  to  the  humblest  capacity.  The  pro- 
foundest  wisdom  often  shows  no  more  sm-face  than 
the  shallowest  folly.  Of  this  the  parables  of  Christ 
are  eminent  examples.  Many  a  sage  and  scholar  has 
neglected  them  as  only  fit  for  children.  Others  have 
looked  npon  them  as  befitting  themes  for  first  at- 
tempts and  young  beginners  in  the  work  of  exposition. 
The  best  corrective  of  this  error  is  experiment.     As 


142  SERMONS. 

few  have  failed  to  entertain  it,  few,  perhaps,  have 
used  this  means  "without  being  undeceived.  What 
appeared  at  first  incapable  of  two  interpretations,  is 
successively  subjected  to  a  dozen.  Whatever  this 
may  argue  with  respect  to  the  interpreter,  so  far  as 
the  Scriptures  are  themselves  concerned,  it  is  not  a 
fault,  but  a  perfection. 

These  divine  discourses  were  intended  to  accom- 
plish more  than  one  end,  and  to  this  variety  of  pur- 
pose their  structure  is  adapted  with  an  exquisite  preci- 
sion. Some  were  to  see  clearly,  more  were  to  be  daz- 
zled. They  were  also  meant,  at  least  in  many  cases, 
to  be  variously  applied.  A  lesson  crowded  with  al- 
lusions to  the  actual  condition  of  our  Lord's  imme- 
diate hearers,  is  often  so  constructed  that  these  very 
points  enforce  its  application  to  a  thousand  other 
cases  wholly  different  externally.  Either  from  this  or 
other  causes,  there  is  sometimes  an  illusion,  like  that 
produced  b}^  a  painting,  seen  from  a  certain  point  of 
observation,  while  from  any  other  it  is  a  distorted 
daub.  The  imagery  of  the  parables,  when  seen  from 
a  particular  distance,  may  be  definite  in  outline,  fault- 
less in  perspective,  jDerfect  in  colouring.  But  ap- 
proach a  little  nearer,  and  the  figures  lose  their  sym- 
metry, the  tints  their  richness.  This  is  often  a  key 
to  the  correct  mode  of  exposition.  It  forbids  the 
coarse  manipulation  of  the  little-souled  grammarian, 
no  less  than  the  cloudy  indistinctness  of  the  sj^ecula- 
tive  dreamer.  It  compels  the  one  to  stand  back,  and 
the  other  to  draw  near,  until  they  both  see  neither  too 
much  nor  too  little,  but  precisely  what  they  ought  to 
gee,  and  must  see,  if  they  would  see  to  any  purpose. 


LUKE  18,  1-8.  143 

In  tliis  way,  some  of  the  most  valuable  lessons  may 
be  learned  as  to  the  folly  of  over-refinement  and  ex- 
travagant minuteness  in  the  explanation  of  strong- 
figures. 

But  sometimes  this  advantage  seems  to  be  pre- 
cluded or  diminished  by  a  doubt  as  to  the  general  de- 
sign of  the  whole  parable.  This  doubt  may  extend  to 
the  very  doctrine  taught,  or  be  restricted  to  its  appli- 
cation. The  truth  embodied  in  some  parables  is  plain, 
but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  it  is  predicted  of 
the  Jews  or  tlie  disciples,  or  some  other  class  exclu- 
sively, or  meant  to  be  applied  to  men  in  general.  In 
other  cases,  both  the  doctrine  and  the  application 
may  be  clear  ;  but  there  is  something  obscure  in  the 
mode  of  illustration,  an  apparent  incongruity  between 
the  substance  and  the  shadow.  This  appearance  often 
springs  from  a  misapprehension  of  the  image  or  its 
use,  and  then  occurs  one  of  those  instances  of  self-in- 
terpretation which  have  already  been  mentioned.  As 
soon  as  the  true  principle  is  once  applied,  the  incon- 
gruity is  gone.  This  proves  tlie  principle  itself  to  be 
correct,  and  furnishes,  or  may  furnish,  valuable  aid 
in  solving  other  cases. 

To  this  last  class  belongs  the  parable  from  which 
the  text  is  taken.  There  is  no  indistinctness  in  the 
images  themselves,  nor  any  doubt  as  to  what  they 
were  designed  to  represent.  The  widow  and  the 
judge  stand  out  before  the  mind's  eye  as  fidly  and 
clearly  as  the  forms  of  flesh  and  bhtod  which  we  re- 
member seeing  yesterday  or  expect  to  see  to-morrow. 
The  widow's  wrong,  the  judge's  wickedness,  his  ecpial 
scorn  of  God  and  man,  the  prayer,  the  refusal,  the  re- 


144:  SERMONS. 

turn,  the  ceaseless  importunity,  the  selfish  tyrant's  rea- 
soning with  hiuDself — all  this  is  like  an  object  of  sense. 
We  do  not  merely  read — we  see,  we  hear,  we  feel  it 
as  a  real,  present  living  spectacle. 

The  moral,  too,  is  not  left  to  be  guessed  at  or  in 
ferred ;  it  is  explicitly  propounded.  This  parable 
was  uttered  for  a  certain  end,  to  teach  a  certain  les- 
son, to  produce  a  determinate  effect ;  and  that  was, 
that  they  who  heard  it  should  pray  always  and  not 
faint,  not  give  up,  or  desert  their  post — the  Greek 
word  having  properly  a  military  sense  and  applica- 
tion. As  to  the  length  which  we  may  go  in  applying 
it,  the  only  question  that  has  ever  been  raised  is, 
whether  it  had  a  sj^ecial  reference  to  the  prayers  of 
Christ's  disciples  after  he  should  leave  them,  till  he 
came  again  for  the  destruction  of  their  nation.  But 
even  if  it  had  been  so  intended,  it  is  one  of  those  cases 
where  the  lesson  taught  to  one  class  is  evidently  uni- 
versal in  its  nature  and  the  purpose  of  tlic  teacher. 

This  is  the  more  certain  here  because  the  terms 
used  are  so  comprehensive,  and  without  any  qualifying 
adjunct.  "  He  spake  a  parable  unto  them  to  this  end, 
that  it  is  right  or  binding  to  pray  always."  If,  then, 
there  is  any  obscurity  or  doubt,  it  is  neither  in  the 
images  presented,  nor  in  the  doctrine  taught,  nor,  to 
any  jDractical  effect,  in  its  application.  But  it  lies  in 
an  apparent  incongruity  between  the  illustration  and 
the  thing  which  it  illustrates.  This  may  be  rendered 
palpable  by  placing  type  and  antitype  over  against 
each  other.  That  the  elect  of  God  should  be  repre- 
sented by  the  wronged  and  helpless  widow,  agrees 
well  witli  the  fact  and  with  the  usage  of  the  Scrip- 


LUKE  IS,  1-8.  145 

tnres.  But  the  prayers  wliicli  these  are  bound  to 
offer  without  ceasing,  must  he  pra_yers  to  God ;  and, 
therefore,  he  would  seem  to  be  the  object  correspond- 
ing to  the  judge  of  the  parable. 

But  this  judge  is  an  unjust  judge ;  he  neither 
fears  God,  nor  respects  man.  He  has  no  restraining 
motives  either  here  or  hereafter.  In  addition  to  this 
general  habitual  corruption,  he  is  actually  guilty  in 
this  very  case  of  gross  injustice.  He  is  faithless  to 
his  trust  in  refusing  to  discharge  the  solemn  duties  of 
his  office.  He  perverts  the  right  by  constantly  re- 
fusing to  redress  the  wrongs  of  the  injured.  "When  at 
last  he  consents  to  do  so,  it  is  from  the  meanest  and 
most  selfish  motive.  It  is  merely  to  escape  trouble 
and  annoyance.  "Lest  by  her  continual  coming  she 
weary  me."  Between  this  character,  this  conduct, 
and  this  motive  for  a  cliange  of  conduct,  on  one  hand, 
and  the  reasons  for  our  importunity  in  prayer,  upon 
the  other,  what  connection,  what  resemblance,  is  there 
or  can  there  be  ? 

To  some  the  difficulty  may  seem  hopeless,  as  their 
rules  of  interpretation  t'orcQ  them  to  admit  that  the 
unjust  judge  is  here  a  type  or  i-epresentative  of  God 
as  the  hearer  of  prayer,  and  that  being  such,  there 
must  be  a  minute  resemblance  of  the  type  and  anti- 
type. Tlicre  have  been  those  who  would  not  scruple 
to  assume  and  carry  out  this  monstrous  notion.  They 
would  say,  perhaps,  that  the  resemblance  is  a  limited 
specific  one ;  that  God  resembles  the  unjust  judge  only 
in  his  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the  petitions  of  his  people, 
and  in  granting  their  requests  because  of  their  unceas- 
ing importunity.    In  order  to  sustain  this  view,  they  are 

VOL.  II. — 7 


146  SERMONS. 

compelled  to  extenuate  tlio  guilt  of  the  unjust  judge, 
and  to  exaggerate  the  supposed  resemblance  between 
him  and  God,  lest  the  comparison  should  be  re- 
volting. 

But  this  is  utterly  at  variance  with  the  drift  and 
with  the  terms  of  the  description.  Why  is  it  said 
that  the  judge  was  an  "  unjust  "  one  ?  Why  is  it  said 
that  he  "feared  not  God,  neither  regarded  man"? 
These  terms  prohibit  all  extenuation.  They  are  evi- 
dently added  for  the  very  j)urpose  of  determining  the 
character.  Injustice  aiid  contempt  of  God  and  man, 
are  not  incidentally  mentioned ;  they  are  prominent. 
They  do  not  modify  the  character ;  they  constitute  it. 
It  is  as  an  "  unjust  judge  "  that  he  is  held  up  to  our 
view;  and,  lest  we  should  mistake  his  quality,  we  are 
told  that  he  neither  feared  God  nor  respected  man. 
This  accumulation  of  condemnatory  phrases  makes  it 
certain  that  the  Avickedness  of  the  judge  is  an  essen- 
tial sti'oke  in  the  description.  The  idea  evidently  is, 
that  the  worse  we  make  him  out,  the  better  we  shall 
understand  the  parable.  We  cannot,  therefore,  substi- 
tute a  merely  careless,  sluggish,  or  forgetful  judge, 
much  less  a  weak,  but  honest  one,  without  destroying 
all  the  point  and  meaning  of  the  apo  ogue. 

How,  then,  are  we  to  reconcile  this  seeming  incon- 
gruity ?  IIow  can  the  conduct  of  this  selfish  tyrant 
to  a  helpless  sufferer,  be  any  illustration  of  a  just  and 
merciful  God's  dealing  with  "  his  own  elect "  ?  One 
thing,  at  least,  is  certain,  that  in  this,  and  .by  parity 
of  reasoning  in  all  like  cases,  it  does  not  follow,  be- 
cause two  things  are  compared  in  one  point,  that  they 
must  be  alike  in  every  ?ther  ;  nor  even  that  they  must 


LUKE  IS,  1-S.  14^ 

be  alike  in  all  the  points  which  are  specifically  men- 
tioned. For  neither  the  character  in  general,  nor  the 
condnct  in  this  one  case,  nor  the  motive  for  reforming 
it,  can  possibly  have  any  counterpart  in  the  divine 
nature  or  dispensations.  The  only  points  of  contact 
are  the  mutual  relation  of  the  parties  as  petitioner 
and  sovereign,  the  withholding  of  the  thing  requested 
and  its  subsequent  bestowal.  In  all  the  rest  there  is, 
there  can  be  no  resemblance  ;  tliere  is  perfect  con- 
trariety. 

"Why,  then,  was  this  unsuitable  image  chosen  even 
for  the  sake  of  illustration  ?  Why  was  not  the  Hearer 
of  Prayer  represented  by  a  creature  bearing  more  of 
his  own  image  ?  AVhy  was  not  the  judge  of  the  par- 
able a  conscientious,  faithful  magistrate,  who,  though 
compelled  to  put  off  a  compliance  with  the  prayer  of 
the  poor  widow,  still  designed  to  grant  it,  and  allowed 
her  to  come  often  and  return  unsatisfied,  in  order  that 
her  wishes  might  be  kept  npon  the  stretch  until  it 
became  possible  to  satisfy  them  ?  Because  this  would 
not  have  answered  our  Lord's  purj^ose,  but  would  only 
have  taught  feebly  by  comparison  what  is  now  taught 
mightily  by  contrast.  The  certainty  of  our  prayers 
being  answered  could  not  possibly  be  strengthened  or 
evinced  by  any  similar  proceeding  upon  man's  part. 
The  ground  of  confidence  here  furnished  is  not  the 
similitude  of  God  to  man,  but  their  infinite  disparity. 
The  argument  implied  is  not,  that  if  imperfect  good- 
ness goes  so  far,  that  perfect  goodness  must  go  fur- 
ther ;  but,  that  if  a  certain  good  effect  may  be  ex- 
pected to  arise  fortuitously  out  of  what  is  evil,  it  may 
surely  be  exjtectcd  to  arise  necessaril_y  out  of  Avhat  is 


148  SERMONS. 

good.  If  even  such  a  cliaracter,  governed  by  such 
motives,  may  be  rationally  expected  to  take  a  certain 
conrse,  however  alien  from  his  native  disposition 
and  his  habits,  there  can  be  no  risk  in  counting  on 
a  like  result  where  all  these  adverse  circumstances 
favonr  it. 

This  view  of  the  parable,  or  of  the  reasoning  in- 
volved in  it,  as  founded  not  on  mere  comparison,  but 
contrast,  does  away  at  once  with  the  necessity  of 
strained  constructions  and  unnatural  refinements.  In- 
stead of  trying  to  exculpate  the  unrighteous  judge,  or 
even  to  extenuate  his  guilt,  we  are  at  liberty,  or  rather 
under  the  necessity  of,  taking  the  description  in  its 
strongest  sense.  The  worse  he  is,  the  better  for  the 
beauty  and  efiect  of  our  Saviour's  illustration.  We 
are  also  freed  from  the  necessity  of  seeking  points  of 
fanciful  resemblance  between  this  ideal  person  and 
the  Father  of  Mercies,  to  whom  all  flesh  come  as  to 
the  Hearer  of  Prayer.  "When  the  object  is  no  longer 
to  assimilate,  but  to  distinguish  and  confront  as  oppo- 
sites,  we  may  give  the  language  of  the  text  its  full 
force,  without  any  fear  of  blasphemy  or  even  of  ir- 
reverence. 

The  three  main  points  of  the  antithesis  are  these 
— the  character,  the  practice,  and  the  motive  of  the 
judge — his  moral  character,  his  official  practice,  and 
his  motive  for  acting  upon  this  occasion  in  a  manner 
contrary  to  both.  His  official  practice  is  intimated 
by  the  word  unjust  applied  to  him  near  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  parable.  If  this  were  meant  to  be  descrip- 
tive merely  of  his  inward  dispositi.ms,  it  would  add 
nothing  to  the  previous  description.     It  refei's  more 


LUKE  18,  1-8.  149 

probably  to  tlie  habitual  discliarge  of  bis  functions, 
to  his  exercise  of  power.  He  was  not  only  destitute 
of  any  love  to  justice  or  any  wish  to  do  it,  but  unjust 
in  practice.  The  interior  source  of  this  exterior  con- 
duct is  then  described  in  other  terms.  He  feared  not 
God.  He  neither  reverenced  him  as  a  sovereign,  nor 
dreaded  him  as  an  avenger.  "Without  this  fear,  jus- 
tice is  impossible.  He  only  can  command  who  knows 
how  to  obey.  He  only  can  direct  the  fears  of  men  to 
right  and  wholesome  uses,  who  is  himself  governed 
by  the  fear  of  God.  A  judge  who  "fears  not  God," 
is  of  necessity  an  "  unjust  judge." 

But  this,  though  decisive  of  the  real  character, 
is  not  necessarily  so  of  the  outward  conduct.  If  the 
acts  of  men  were  always  an  unerring  index  of  their 
moral  state,  the  world  would  be  a  very  different  world 
from  what  it  is.  If  human  society  depended  for  its 
temporal  advantages  exclusively  on  genuine  virtue, 
it  woidd  soon  come  to  an  end.  There  are  appear- 
ances of  goodness  which,  although  abominable  in  the 
sight  of  God,  are  highly  esteemed  among  men,  and 
for  that  very  reason,  have  a  social,  civil  or  political 
value,  wholly  irrespective  of  their  moral  worth  or 
worthlessness.  These  outside  virtues,  having  no  pure 
fountain  in  the  heart,  must  spring  from  other  sources. 
They  are  not  the  fruit  of  politic  contrivance  and  col- 
lusion, being  only  overruled  for  civil  ends  by  Provi- 
dence. Their  real  source  is  in  the  selfishness  of  those 
who  practise  them. 

Among  the  motives  which  may  act  upon  this  prin- 
ciple, not  the  least  potent  is  the  fear  of  man.  This 
may  include  the  dread  of  h.s  displeasure,  the  desire 


150  SERBIONS. 

of  his  applause,  and  an  instinctive  shrinking  even 
from  his  scorn.  Shame,  fear,  ambition,  all  maj  cou^ 
tribute  to  produce  an  outward  goodness  having  no 
real  counterj^art  Avithin,  This  is  particularly  true  of 
public  and  official  acts.  How  many  magistrates  and 
office-bearers,  who  have  no  right  j)rinciple  to  guide  or 
check  them,  are  controlled  by  a  regard  to  the  decen- 
cies of  life,  to  the  conventional  exactions  of  society, 
in  short,  to  public  sentiment.  Such  fear  not  God  but 
man.  They  can  brave  the  terrors  of  eternity,  but  not 
the  nearer  retributions  of  the  present  life.  They  can  con- 
sent to  risk  their  souls,  but  not  to  jeopard  their  re- 
spectability. Under  the  influence  of  this  selfish  but 
most  salutary  fear,  they  do  what  they  would  other- 
wise leave  undone,  and  abstain  from  what  would 
otherwise  be  done  without  a  scruple. 

There  would  thus  seem  to  be  three  grounds  for 
expecting  justice  and  fidelity  in  human  society,  and 
especially  in  public  trusts.  The  first  and  highest  is 
the  fear  of  God,  including  all  religious  motives — then 
the  fear  of  man  or  a  regard  to  j^ublic  sentiment — and 
last,  the  force  of  habit,  the  authority  of  precedent,  a 
disposition  to  do  that  which  has  been  done  before, 
because  it  has  been  done  before.  These  three  impul- 
sive forces  do  not  utterly  exclude  each  other.  They 
may  coexist  in  due  subordination.  Tliey  may  all  be 
necessary  to  a  complete  official  character.  The  first 
in  that  case,  must  control  the  others,  but  the  others, 
under  that  control,  may  answer  an  important  purj^ose. 
The  man  who  fears  God,  does  not,  on  that  account, 
despise  the  judgment  of  his  fellows,  though  it  cannot 
be  to  him  the  ultimate,  supreme  rule  of  his  conduct. 


LUKE  18,  1-8.  151 

The  same  is  true  of  a  regard  to  settled  usage,  or 
even  to  personal  habit,  wlien  correctly  formed.  In- 
deed, these  latter  motives  never  have  so  po-u'erfiil  an 
influence  for  good,  as  when  thev  act  in  due  subordina- 
tion to  the  fear  of  God.  It  is  only  when  this  is  want- 
ing, and  they  undertake  to  fill  its  place,  that  they 
become  unlawful  or  objectionable.  And  even  then, 
although  they  cannot  make  good  the  deficiency  in 
God's  sight,  they  may  make  it  good  in  man's. 
Although  the  root  of  the  matter  is  not  in  them,  a 
short-lived  verdure  may  be  brought  out  and  main- 
tained by  artificial  means.  In  this  case,  the  defect  is 
one  which  cannot  be  supplied.  But  even  where-  the 
secondary  lower  motives  fail  or  cease  to  act,  the  con- 
sequence may  be  unhappy.  The  most  conscientious 
man,  who  disregards  the  public  sentiment  or  ti'amples 
on  established  usage,  may  do  far  less  than  he  might 
have  done,  though  far  more  than  the  demagogue  who 
lives  on  popular  applause,  or  the  j)recisian  Avho  ac- 
knowledges no  higher  law  than  custom.  The  want  of 
any  one  of  these  impulsive  forces,  may  detract  from 
the  completeness  of  the  ultimate  eftcct.  How  much 
more  the  absence  of  them  all ! 

If  the  judge,  for  instance,  v^'ho  is  governed  by  the 
fear  of  God,  and  pays  due  respect  to  the  opinion  of 
mankind,  may  fall  short  of  the  standard,  througli  a 
want  of  fixed  habit,  or  contempt  of  settled  usage  ; 
if  he  who,  in  addition  to  this,  sets  at  nought  the  judg- 
ment of  his  fellows,  sinks  still  lower  in  the  scale,  how 
low  must  he  sink  who  has  not  even  honesty,  much 
less,  religion  to  compensate  for  his  minor  errors  !  In 
other  words,  how  utterly  unjust  must  that  judge  be 


152  SERMONS. 

who  neither  fears  God  nor  regards  man.  It  seemi? 
then,  that  the  few  words  which  our  Saviour  uses,  are 
so  hajDpilj  chosen  and  so  well  applied  as  to  exhaust 
the  subject,  by  affording  a  description  of  an  abso- 
lutely worthless  judge,  on  whom  none  of  the  ordinary 
motives  to  fidelity  have  any  influence,  and  from  whom 
nothing,  therefore,  can  be  expected.  "What  could  be 
more  hopeless  than  the  case  of  the  poor  widow  at  the 
feet  of  such  a  tyrant  ?  If  he  knows  neither  fear  nor 
shame — if  there  is  nothing  to  restrain  him  either  in 
the  present  or  the  future — if  she  has  not  the  means  of 
appealing  to  his  avarice — how  clear  it  seems  that  his 
refusal  to  avenge  her  is  a  final  one,  and  that  con- 
tinued importunity  can  only  waste  time  aud  provoke 
him  to  new  insult. 

I  dwell  on  these  particulars  to  show  that,  in  their 
aggregate,  they  are  intended  to  convey  the  idea  of  a 
hopeless  case.  The  petitioner  was  helpless — she  was 
poor — she  was  at  the  mercy  of  her  enemies.  The 
judge  was  habitually  un;'ust,  and  uninfluenced,  either 
by  the  fear  of  God  or  by  resj)ect  for  man.  What  is 
this  but  to  say — and  to  say  in  the  most  graphic  and 
expressive  manner — that  the  case  is  hopeless — that 
her  importunity  is  vain  ?  And  yet  she  perseveres ;  so 
have  thousands  in  like  cases.  Why  ?  Because  there 
is  nothing  more  to  lose,  even  though  there  may  be 
nothing  to  hope.  And  there  always  is  some  room  for 
hope.  For  hope  does  not  depend  on  certainties  nor 
even  probabilities,  but  on  possibilities.  "When  there 
can  be  no  change  for  the  worse,  and  a  change  for  the 
better  is  even  barely  possible,  men  will  hope,  from 
the  very   constitution    of  their  nature      "When   the 


LUKE  18,  1-8.  153 

widow's  case  is  said  to  be  hopeless,  it  is  not  said  with 
respect  to  her  own  feeling,  but  with  respect  to  any 
rational,  appreciable  ground  of  hope.  She  hoi^es 
against  hope.  An  indomitable  instinct  triumphs  over 
reason.  She  persists  in  her  entreaties.  So  have 
thousands. 

The  ideal  case  was  meant  to  bring  before  us  a 
familiar  practice.  It  is  equivalent  to  saying,  Men  in 
such  situations  still  confide  in  the  effect  of  importu- 
nity. When  every  thing  seems  plainly  to  forbid  it, 
they  persist,  because  success  is  possible,  and  on  that 
possibility  the  natural  repugnance  to  despair  exerts 
itself.  Yes,  even  in  the  most  discouraging  condition, 
men  will  pray  to  their  fellow-men,  so  long  as  there  is 
a  possibility  of  having  what  they  ask.  And  in  this 
perseverance  they  are  often  justified  by  the  event. 
Of  this  fact  too,  the  widow's  case  is  but  a  type.  "With 
every  reason  to  cease  praying,  she  prayed  on  and  she 
Avas  heard  at  last.  "When  every  higher  motive  failed, 
a  lower  one  was  still  available.  She  could  not  bribe 
but  she  could  weary  him.  lie  who  neither  feared 
God  nor  regarded  man,  was  tenderly  mindful  of  his 
own  ease.  He  did  not  say,  "  lest  God  be  angry"  or 
"lest  man  despise  me,"  but  he  said,  "lest  b}^  her  con- 
tinual coming  she  weary  me."  This  might  have 
seemed  a  frail  foundation  for  the  hope  of  the  peti- 
tioner, or  rather  it  would  never  have  occurred  to  her 
as  likely  to  decide  her  case,  and  yet,  on  this  it  turned 
at  last.  Lest  she  should  weary  him  he  did  her  jus- 
tice. Her  continued  importunity  was  therefore 
justified  by  its  success.  She  did  well  in  continuing 
to  urge  her  claim,  however  little  reason  she  miglit 

VOL.  II. — 7* 


X54  SERMONS. 

Lave  to  look  for  its  success.  The  wi(7ow  in  the  para^ 
ble  and  tliose  of  whom  she  is  the  type  or  representa- 
tive, do  right,  act  reasonably  in  thus  persevering, 
even  where  the  case  seems  desperate  and  every  ra- 
tional consideration  is  in  favour  of  abandoning  the  suit. 

There  is  often  a  divine  art  in  our  Saviour's  para- 
bles, by  which  we  are  led  unawares  to  pass  judgment 
on  ourselves.  This  is  sometimes  recorded  as  the  actual 
effect  produced  upon  the  unbelieving  Jews.  But  the 
effect  is  often  still  more  general.  It  arises  partly 
from  the  peculiarities  of  structure  which  have  been 
described.  The  indistinctness  of  the  images  present- 
ed, seems  at  times  to  be  intended  to  disguise  the  final 
application  of  the  lesson  till  its  truth  is  fully  recog- 
nized. In  this  way  the  Pharisees  were  made  to  utter 
their  own  sentence,  and  in  this  way  we  too  may  be- 
come our  own  judges  without  knowing.  The  simpler, 
the  more  natural  the  case  supposed,  the  more  tre- 
mendous is  the  force  of  its  recoil  upon  the  real  object. 

In  the  parable  before  ns,  we  are  all  led  irresistibly 
to  own  that  the  widow's  persevering  application  to 
the  unjust  judge  was  rational  and  right,  althongh  ap- 
parently the  case  was  hopeless.  Though  there  seemed 
to  be  nothing  in  the  character,  the  habits,  or  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  judge,  on  which  a  reasonable  ex- 
pectation could  be  founded,  yet  we  know  that  she 
was  right,  becanse  she  gained  her  end,  and  that  not 
by  accident,  but  in  a  way  entirely  natural  and  likely 
to  occur  again.  The  true  force  and  application  of* 
the  parable  may  best  be  shown  by  varying  the  ideal 
case  presented,  first  a  little,  and  then  more,  until  it 
merges  in  the  real  case  it  was  intended  to  illustrate. 


LUKE  18,  1-8.  155 

Tlie  conclusion  wliicli  we  liave  already  readied  is, 
that  the  widow  in  the  parable  did  right,  acted  a  rea- 
sonable 2:)art,  in  hoping  against  hope,  and  still  persist- 
ing in  her  suit  when  every  thing  combined  to  prove 
it  hopeless.  If  so,  the  converse  of  the  proposition 
must  be  true;  and  by  abandoning  her  suit  or  suspend- 
ing her  entreaties  she  would  have  been  chargeable 
with  folly  and  with  sin  proportioned  to  the  interests 
at  stake.  If  it  had  been  her  OAvn  subsistence  merely 
that  would  be  enough  to  condemn  her  dereliction, 
how  much  more  if  that  of  others  were  dependent  on 
the  same  decision.  She  would  have  had  no  rii^ht  to 
sacrifice  the  comfort  and  tranquillity,  much  less  the 
life  or  the  salvation  of  her  children  to  her  own  de- 
spondency or  weariness  of  eft  or  t.  All  this  is  certain, 
and  will  be  at  once  admitted  in  the  case  which  the 
parable  supposes,  to  wit,  that  of  an  unjust,  unmerci- 
ful, and  selfish  judge,  "  who  feared  not  God  neither 
regarded  man." 

But  let  us  suppose  that  he  had  been  an  upright, 
conscientious,  faithful  judge,  whose  execution  of  his 
oflicc  was  delayed  by  some  mistake  or  want  of  infor- 
mation. How  much  less  excusable  would  she  have 
then  been  in  relinquishing  her  rights  or  those  of 
others  in  despair!  Suppose  again  that  there  had  not 
been  even  ignorance  or  error  on  the  judge's  part  to 
make  the  issue  doubtful,  but  that  his  decision  was 
delayed  by  temporary  circumstances  which  were 
likely  soon  to  have  an  end.  The  case  would  then  be 
stronger  still,  and  the  folly  of  abandoning  the  suit 
Btill  greater. 

But  advance  another  step.    Imagine  that  the  grant- 


156  SERMOSS. 

ing  of  tlio  widow's  prayer  liad  been  deferred  for  tlio 
sake  of  the  petitioner  lierself,  in  order  that  the  favour 
when  obtained  might  be  enhanced  in  vahie.  Suppose 
that  instead  of  knowing  that  the  judge  was  in  principle 
and  habit  unjust,  she  had  known  him,  by  experience, 
to  be  just  and  merciful,  as  well  as  eminently  wise. 
Suppose  that  she  had  been  protected  by  him,  and  her 
wrongs  redressed  in  many  other  cases.  Suppose  that 
she  had,  even  in  the  present  case,  his  promise,  nay 
his  oath  that  justice  should  be  done  her.  How  easy 
must  it  then  have  been  to  trust !  How  doubly  mad 
and  wicked  to  despair ! 

There  seems  to  be  room  for  only  one  more  suppo- 
sition. Those  which  have  been  stated,  from  the  low- 
est to  the  highest,  all  imply  the  ])os%ibility  of  error  or 
delinquency,  however  strong  the  reasons  for  expecting 
the  actual  exercise  of  wisdom  and  integrity.  But 
now  remove  this  possibility.  Exclude  all  chance  of 
intellectual  or  moral  wrong.  Enlarge  the  attributes 
before  supposed,  until  they  reach  infinity  or  absolute 
perfection.  What  then  would  be  left  as  the  founda- 
tion or  the  pretext  of  a  doubt  ?  The  bare  fact  of  de- 
lay? Under  this  pretence,  suppose  the  suitor  to 
despair  and  to  renounce  his  suit.  Is  not  this  indeed 
a  case  of  madness,  too  extreme  to  be  supposed  ?  be- 
cause it  could  not  occur  often,  even  if  it  occurred 
once.  Alas !  my  hearers,  this  extreme  case  is  our 
0"s^Ti.  It  is  to  this  view  of  ourselves,  that  the  con- 
summate wisdom  of  the  Master  brings  us  by  a  way 
that  we  knew  not.  Just  so  far  as  we  practically  doul)t 
the  promises  of  God,  or  fail  to  use  the  means  of  his 
appointment,  we  reverse  the  conduct  of  the  widow  in 


LUKE  18,  1-8.  3^5'j' 

the  parable,  and  that  too  under  the  most  aggraYaiing 
circumstances.      If  she  was  wise  in  hoping  against 
hope,  what  must  we  be  in  despairing  against  evidence  ? 
From  this  conviction  we  perhaps  take  refuge  in 
the  false  view  of  the  parable  before  exposed.     "We 
would  fain  deny  the  possibility  of  arguing  from  one 
case  to  the  other.     For  this  purpose  we  exaggerate 
and  multiply  the  points  of  difierence.     She  asked  for 
justice  ;  we  for  mercy  or  free  favour.    Her  judge  was 
unjust,  impious,  and  reckless  ;    ours  is  the  infinitely 
Holy  God.     She  gained   her  end  by  exhausting  his 
jiatience ;    but  "  the  everlasting  God,  the  Lord,  the 
Creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earth,  fainteth  not,  neither 
is  weary."     How  then  can  we  be  either  bound  or 
condemned   by  her  example?     Because   she  at  last 
wearied  an  unjust  judge  into  doing  right  in  order  to 
escape  a  worse  annoyance,  what  ground  have  we  to 
hope  that  we  can  weary  the  Most  High  into  com- 
pliance with  our  wishes  ?     It  need   scarcely  be  said 
now,  that  this  is  not  the  true  state  of  the  case.     The 
true  state  of  the  case  is  this.     If  she  would  have  been 
chargeable  with  sin  and  folly  in  despairing  of  justice 
from   an  unjust,  impious,  and  reckless  judge,  Avho 
feared  not  God  neither  regarded  man,  what  may  we 
be  charged  with  if  we  despair  of  mercy,  freely  offered, 
dearly  purchased,  clearly  promised,  on   the  part  of 
God  himself?      If  she  was  right  in   trusting  to  the 
selfish  love  of  case  in  such  a  man,  how  wrong  must 
we  be  in  distrusting  the  benevolence,  the  faithfulness, 
the  truth  of  such  a  God  ! 

Every  point  of  dissimilitude  between  the  cases 
does  but  serve  to  make  our  own  still  worse  and  less 


158  SERMONS. 

excusable,  by  bringing  into  shocknig  contrast  mea's 
dependence  on  the  worst  of  their  own  species,  with, 
tlieir  want  of  confidence  in  God.  For  what  tlie 
Avidow  in  the  parable  did,  all  men  do  substantially. 
Tliey  will  not  be  deprived  of  any  temporal  hope,  how- 
ever great  the  human  wickedness  which  seems  to 
crush  it.  On  the  contrary,  they  will  not,  in  a  multi- 
tude, alas,  a  vast  majority  of  cases,  be  persuaded  to 
trust  God,  and  to  prove  their  trust  by  importunity  in 
prayer,  however  ample  the  encouragement,  however 
strong  and  unequivocal  the  promise. 

The  extensive  application  of  the  lesson  here  taught 
is  apparent  from  the  nature  of  the  principles  involved. 
It  is  impossible  to  feign  a  case  at  all  analogous,  to 
which  it  may  not  be  as  properly  aj^plied  as  to  tli&  one 
exjjressly  mentioned.  The  only  grounds  of  limitatioii 
which  have  ever  been  suggested,  are  the  supposed 
reference  to  the  downfall  of  Jerusalem,  and  an 
alleged  restriction  of  the  parable  by  Chi'ist  him- 
self to  the  specific  grant  of  vengeance  on  the  enemies 
of  His  elect.  The  first  has  been  already  shown  to  be 
really  no  limitation,  even  if  the  primary  intention 
were  the  one  supposed.  The  other  rests  upon  a  two- 
fold misconception.  In  the  first  place,  the  avenging 
here  meant  is  judicial  or  forensic  vindication  ;  the 
redress  of  wrongs  endured,  and  the  assertion  of  dis- 
puted rights.  The  adversaries  meant,  as  appears  from 
the  form  of  the  original  expression,  are  the  adverse 
party  in  a  case  of  litigation.  There  is  no  allusion, 
therefore,  to  the  gi-atification  of  malicious  or  revengeful 
passions.  In  the  next  place,  even  if  there  were,  it 
would  belong  to  the  type  and  not  to  the  antitype, 


LUKE  IS,  1-8.  159 

and  be  no  better  reason  for  restricting  tbe  import  of 
the  passage,  than  the  fact  that  the  petitioner  is  repre- 
sented as  a  widow.  Because  the  ideal  judge  says,  "  I 
will  avenge  her,  lest  by  her  continual  coming  she 
weary  me,''  our  Lord,  adapting  his  expressions  to 
tlie  case  supposed,  says,  "  Shall  not  God  do  likewise ; 
shall  not  he  avenge  his  own  elect,  which  cry  day  and 
night  imto  him,  though  he  bear  long  with  them?" 
Tliis  evidently  means,  shall  he  not  at  last  hear  their 
prayers,  though  he  long  defer  an  answer  ?  So  instead 
of  saying.  Yes,  he  will  surely  hear  them,  he  still  re- 
tains the  costume  of  the  parable  in  answering  his  own 
demand  :  "  I  tell  you  that  he  will  avenge  tliem  speed- 
ily," i,  e.,  he  will  do  what  they  ask  more  certainly,  be- 
cause for  reasons  altogether  diifereut,  and  from  motives 
infinitely  higher  than  those  for  which  tlie  unjust  judge 
consented  to  avenge  his  helpless  but  importunate  pe- 
titioner. 

But  how  shall  it  be  speedily,  when  by  the  very 
supposition  it  is  long  deferred  ?  Because  the  longest 
term  of  expectation,  when  surveyed  by  an  eye  of 
faith,  and  not  of  doubt  or  jealous  apprehension,  will 
be  short  enough  to  the  believer  ;  and  because  contin- 
ued expectation  of  the  right  sort,  while  it  fortifies  his 
faith,  is  constantly  diminishing  the  period  of  its  ex- 
ercise. If  we  really  Ijelieve  that  God  will  grant  us 
our  petitions,  we  shall  gladly  acquiesce  in  his  ap- 
pointed time,  and  own,  when  he  "  avenges "  us, 
whether  it  be  sooner  or  later,  that  he  did  it  "  speed- 
ily." The  only  question  is,  have  we  that  faith,  to 
which,  as  to  the  Lord  himself,  "  one  day  is  as  a  thou- 
sand years,  and  a  thousand  years  as  one  day  ?  "     The 


1(50  SERMONS. 

only  difficulty  of  the  case  is  in  ourselves,  and  hence 
the  Saviour  winds  up  his  divine  instructions  with  a 
"  nevertheless  ;  "  i.  <?.,  notwithstanding  the  immense 
weight  of  preponderating  reasons  for  implicit  confi- 
dence in  God,  expressed  by  importunity  in  prayer — 
notwithstanding  the  gross  folly,  and  the  aggravated 
guilt  of  that  despondency  which  "  casts  off  fear  and 
restrains  prayer  before  God" — though  the  faith  re- 
quired is  so  simple,  so  reasoaable,  so  delightful — is  it 
common,  is  it  ever  to  be  universal  ?  The  reasons  for 
believing  are  the  most  complete  and  satisfactory  con- 
ceivable. "  Nevertheless  when  the  Son  of  Man  cometh, 
shall  he  find  faith  on  the  earth  ?  "  This  solemn  ques- 
tion comes  home  just  as  really  to  us,  as  if  we  were  to 
meet  the  Lord  on  earth  to-morrow.  And  if  we  would 
answer  it  aright  let  us  remember  that  the  faith  in 
question  is  a  faith  that  must  be  proved  and  exercised 
by  prayer ;  so  that  if  men  would  either  have  it  or  dem- 
onstrate that  they  have  it,  they  "  ought  always  to 
pray,  and  not  to  faint." 


IX. 

2  Kings  17,  33. — They  feared  the  Lord,  and  served  their  own  goda, 

"  The  fear  of  tlie  Lord  is  the  beginning  of  knowl- 
edge " — "  the  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom,"  are  two  of  Solomon's  most  pregnant  max- 
ims ;  *  or  rather  two  forms  of  the  same,  which  is  again 
repeated  in  the  book  of  Psalms,  f  The  word  "  be- 
ginning "  in  all  these  cases,  may  be  strictly  understood 
as  having  reference  to  time.  This  is  the  point  from 
which  all  successful  students  of  true  wisdom  must  set 
out.  Their  first  lesson  is  to  fear  the  Lord.  If  they 
cannot  learn  this,  they  can  learn  nothing,  to  any  val- 
uable purpose.  They  can  no  more  attain  to  high 
degrees  of  wisdom  without  this,  than  a  child  can  learn 
to  read  without  a  knowledge  of  the  alphabet.  This 
comparison,  however,  like  all  others,  ceases  to  hold 
good  at  a  certain  point  of  the  application.  Tlic  el- 
ementary knowledge,  with  which  the  culture  of  the 
child  begins,  is  afterwards  left  far  behind,  as  some- 
thing which  no  longer  claims  attention.  But  in  spir- 
itual culture  the  first  elements  of  knowledge  and  its 
ultimate   attainments  may  be   said  to  be  identical. 

*  Prov.  1,  7  :  9,  10.  t  Tsalni  111,  10. 


162  SERMONS. 

"  The  fear  of  the  Lord  "  is  as  really  tlie  end  as  "  tlio 
beginning  of  wisdom,"  altliougli  not  in  sncli  a  sense 
as  to  exclnde  progression,  and  a  A'ast  rariation  of  de- 
gree in  tlie  experience  of  one  and  the  same  person. 

"  The  fear  of  the  Lord,"  which  is  thus  both  the 
alpha  and  omega  of  the  spiritual  alphabet,  may  be 
taken  either  in  a  generic  or  a  specific  sense.     The 
former  is,  in  fact,  coextensive  with  the  general  idea 
of  religion  or  true  piety,  including,  either  directly  or 
by  necessary  inference,  every  riglit  disposition  and 
affection  on  the  part  of  man,  as  a  dependent  and  un- 
worthy   creature,  towards   the   infinitely   great   and 
holy  God.     All  such  affections   may  be  readily  de- 
duced from  fear,  in  its  specific  sense,  as  signifying  not 
a  slavish  but  a  filial  feeling,  not  mere  dread  or  terror, 
which,  from  its  very  nature,  must  be  always  tinged 
with  hate,  or  at  least  with  repugnance,  but  a  rever- 
ence impregnated  with  love.     This  genuine  and  spu- 
rious fear  of  God,  unlike  as  they  may  seem,  and  as 
they  are,  have  often  been  confounded,  on  account  of 
their  having  something  really  in  common,  to  wit,  a 
sense  of  God's  power,  and  an  apprehension  of  his 
wrath  as  awaiting  all  transgressors  of  his  will.     But 
this  common  element,  which  justifies  the  use  of  the 
word  fear  in  reference  to  both  these  dispositions,  is 
blended  in  the  one  case  with  a  consciousness  of  aliena- 
tion and  hostility,  while  in  the  other  it  is  lost,  as  it 
were,  in  the  feeling  of  attachment,  confidence,  and 
common  interest.     Tlie  varying  proportion,  in  which 
these  distinctive  qualities  are  blended  with  the  fun- 
damental property  of  fear,  determines  the  facility  with 
which  a  filial  awe  may  be  confounded  with  a  slavish 
cl  resid . 


2  KINGS  17,  33.  103 

To  discriminate  between  tlie  two  miglit  sometimes 
be  impossible,  but  for  a  practical  criterion  or  test 
wliicli  the  Word  of  God  lias  laid  down,  in  accordance 
with  our  Saviour's  fundamental  rule  of  moral  diag-- 
nosis,  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  In  one 
of  the  passages  which  recognize  the  fear  of  the  Lord 
as  the  beginning  of  wisdom,  it  is  closely  connected 
with  obedience  to  his  will.  "  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is 
the  beginning  of  wisdom  ;  a  good  understanding  have 
all  they  that  do  them,  i.  e.,  his  commandments."  * 
"  Blessed  is  the  man  that  feareth  the  Lord,  that  de- 
lighteth  greatly  in  his  commandments."  f 

This  intimate  connection  between  genuine  fear 
and  obedience  is  recognized  in  the  law  itself,  when 
Moses'  warns  Israel  "  to  do  all  the  words  of  this  law 
that  are  written  in  this  book,  that  thou  mayest  fear 
the  glorious  and  fearful  name.  The  Lord  thy  God."  :}: 
The  negative  aspect  of  the  same  truth  is  exhibited  by 
Job,  when  he  winds  up  his  sublime  inquiry  after  wis- 
dom with  the  solemn  declaration,  "  Behold,  the  fear 
of  the  Lord,  that  is  wisdom,  and  to  depart  from  evil 
is  understanding."  §  Here  then  is  the  touchstone  of 
a  genuine  and  a  spurious  fear  of  God.  The  one  dis- 
poses us  to  do  his  will,  from  a  sincere  complacency 
and  acquiescence  in  it.  The  other  prompts  us  rather 
to  resist  it,  except  so  far  as  our  compliance  may  seem 
necessary  to  escape  his  M'rath,  which  is  the  only  real 
object  of  this  slavish  dread.  Tlie  one  is  a  fear  of 
punishment  as  th'e  consequence  of  sin  ;  the  other  a 
fear  of  sin  itself,  as  intrinsically  evil,  or,  which 
amounts  to  the  same  thing,  as  opposed  to  tlie  will  of 

*  Psalm  111,  10.     \  Tsalm  112,  1.      X  Dcut.  28,  58.     §  Job  28,  28. 


KJJ.  SERMONS. 

God,  and  to  his  very  uature,  wliicli  is  thus  assumed 
as  the  ultimate  criterion  of  right  and  wrong,  of  good 
and  evih  Only  a  filial  fear  disposes  men  to  serve 
God.  Selfish  and  slavish  fear  disposes  them  to  flee 
from  him.  This  nneasy  sense  of  insecurity  would  be 
relieved  and  gladdened  by  the  assurance  that  there 
is  no  God  ;  whereas  the  same  assurance  would  be 
anguish  or  despair  to  the  affectionate  and  reverential 
fear  of  the  believer.  These  two  things,  then,  are  to 
be  regarded  as  inseparable,  the  fear  of  God  and  ser- 
vice of  God.  He  who  will  not  serve  God  does  not 
fear  him,  i.  <?.,  in  any  good  sense  of  the  term.  His 
fear,  so  far  as  he  has  any,  is  a  slavish  fear  ;  and  slav- 
ish fear  is  never  free  from  some  admixture  of  hostility. 
This  distinction,  however  obvious  as  it  is  in  Scrip- 
ture and  familiar  in  experience,  is  not  practically  re- 
cognized by  all  men.  There  seems  to  be  a  natural 
proj^eusity  to  look  upon  fear,  blank  fear,  as  the  es- 
sence of  devotion,  as  the  whole  of  what  is  due  to  God, 
the  rendering  of  which  absolves  from  all  obligation 
to  believe,  to  trust,  to  love,  or  to  obey.  Among  the 
heathen,  this  idea  of  religion  is  perhaps  predominant, 
or  certainly  far  more  prevalent  than  we  frequently 
imagine.  It  may  well  be  qiiestioned  whether  their 
deities  are  ever  the  objects  of  their  love,  excepting  in 
those  cases  where  the  god  is  but  a  personification  of 
some  darling  lust.  Beyond  this  homage  rendered  to 
the  unchecked  sway  of  their  own  appetites  and  pas- 
sions, there  is  strong  I'cason  for  believing  that  their 
devotion  is  nothing  but  the  tribute  of  their  fears  to  a 
supe]'ior  power  which  they  hate,  and  which  they  look 
upon  as  hating  them.     The  service  rendered  under 


2  KINGS  17,  33.  1(55 

the  influence  -of  such  a  motive,  is  in  no  ease  more 
than  they  regard  as  iihsohitely  necessary  to  secure 
them  from  the  wrath  of  the  offended  godhead.  If 
they  could  Le  convinced  that  less  would  gain  their 
end,  they  would  joyfully  diminish  the  amount,  and 
still  more  joyfully  receive  permission  to  withhold  it 
•  altogether.  But  this  complete  immunity  is  rendered 
unattainable  by  conscience.  They  feel  that  they  are 
guilty,  i.  <?.,  justly  liable  to  punishment,  and  cannot 
rest  without  an  effort  to  escape  it. 

But  this  universal  and  unconquerable  sense  of 
guilt  may  coexist  with  an  indefinite  variety  of  no- 
tions as  to  the  means  of  propitiation,  and  the  extent 
to  which  those  means  must  be  applied.  Some  men 
may  feel  it  to  be  necessary  to  expend  their  whole 
time  in  appeasing  the  divine  wrath  ;  but  by  far  the 
greater  number,  under  every  known  form  of  idolatry, 
consider  less  than  this  sufficient,  and  rejoice  to  appro- 
priate the  residue  to  self-indulgence.  Tliey  give  no 
more  than  is  extorted  by  their  fears,  and  have  no 
conception  of  religious  service  as  a  voluntary,  cheer- 
ful, joyous  consecration  of  the  whole  man  to  an  object 
which  he  venerates  and  loves,  and  in  the  doing  of 
whose  w^ill  he  finds  his  highest  happiness.  The  only 
service  of  this  free,  spontaneous,  and  absorbing  nature 
that  the  heathen  devotee  pays,  is  the  service  rendered 
to  himself,  in  the  indulgence  of  his  OAvn  corrupt  de- 
sires. He  gives  even  to  his  chosen  idol  only  M'hat  he 
is  unable  to  withhold,  his  fears ;  and  by  so  doing 
proves  himself  a  stranger  to  all  genuine  religious  fear, 
which  cannot  be  divorced  from  the  willino;  and  de- 
voted  service  of  its  object. 


166  SERMONS. 

I  have  stated  this  as  a  grand  practical  error  of  the 
heatlien,  in  order  that  we  may  be  able  to  judge  of  it 
impartially,  and  not  at  all  because  it  is  confined  to 
them.  Of  men  in  general  it  may  be  affirmed,  that 
they  are  prone  to  separate  religious y<?ar,  in  their  con- 
ceptions and  their  practice,  from  religious  service,  and 
by  that  separation  to  convert  the  former  into  a  slavish 
dread,  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  the  filial  rev- 
erential fear  of  genuine  devotion.  "Whether  the  prof- 
fered object  of  their  worship  be  the  true  God  or  a 
false  one,  they  naturally  slide  into  this  error.  Hence 
it  is  that  the  majority  of  men  adore  their  god  or  their 
gods  with  a  divided  heart,  and  try  to  obey  two  mas- 
ters, serving  whatever  they  love  best — the  world, 
their  fellow-creatures,  themselves  ;  fearing  whatever 
they  believe  can  punish  or  destroy  them,  which  for 
that  very  reason  they  consider  as  entitled,  not  so  much 
to  love  as  liatred.  "Wherever  conscience  is  at  all 
awakened,  and  religious  means,  no  matter  what,  are 
used  to  2^acify  it,  it  will  be  found  a  brief  but  just  de- 
scri^ition  of  the  multitude  thus  influenced  ;  that  they 
fear  one  thing  and  serve  another.  To  the  judge  and 
the  avenger  they  give  what  they  must,  and  lavish  all 
the  rest  upon  themselves,  their  pride,  their  malice, 
their  ambition,  their  insatiable  appetites,  their  raging 
passions. 

An  apt  illustration  of  this  general  truth  is  aftorded 
by  a  singular  and  interesting  passage  of  the  sacred 
history.  The  king  of  Assyi'ia  had  carried  into  exile 
the  ten  tribes  of  Israel,  and  supplied  their  place  with 
settlers  from  his  own  dominions.  TheSe  were  heathen, 
and  brought  with  them  their  own  idols  and  idolatrous 


2  KINGS  17,  38.  ]  67 

rites.  Having  no  knowledge  of  Jeliovah,  ^Yllom  their 
predecessors  had  professed  to  worship,  even  under  the 
forbidden  form  of  golden  calves,  they  had,  of  course, 
no  fear  of  his  displeasure,  till  he  sent  wild  beasts 
among  them,  and  slew  some  of  them.  Regarding  this 
correctly  as  a  penal  visitation  from  the  god  of  the 
land,  they  procured  from  their  own  sovereign  the  as- 
sistance of  an  Israelitish  priest  to  teach  them  how  to 
worship  him.  He  accordingly  taught  them,  as  the 
narrative  expresses  it,  "  how  they  should  fear  the 
Lord,"  and  they  acted  promptly  upon  his  instructions. 
They  took  care,  however,  to  provide  gods  of  their 
own,  each  tribe  or  nation  for  itself,  while  at  the  same 
time  they  offered  to  Jehovah  a  worship  of  fear 
prompted  more  by  the  recollection  of  lions  than 
by  faith  or  reason.  "  So  they  feared  the  Loed,  and 
SERVED  THEIR  OWN  GODS."  How  far  the  sacred  writer 
was  from  recognizing  this  as  any  genuine  religious 
fear  at  all,  we  learn  from  his  saying,  in  the  very  next 
sentence,  "  unto  this  day  they  do  after  the  former 
manners  ;  "  they  fear  not  the  Lord."  Why  ?  Be- 
cause "  they  feared  the  Lord,  and  served  their  own 
gods." 

We  maybe  disposed  to  smile  with  some  contempt 
at  the  absurd  and  inconsistent  conduct  of  tliese 
wretched  pagans.  But  wherein  did  their  fully  and 
their  sin  consist?  Certainly  not  in  being  afraid  of 
the  displeasure  of  Jehovah  and  in  seeking  to  avert  it; 
for  in  this  they  acted  wisel3^  But  it  lay  in  their  im- 
agining that  forms  of  worship,  extorted  from  them  by 
their  selfish  fears,  would  be  sufiicient  to  propitiate 
the  Most  High  and  secure  them  from  his  vengeance ; 


Jg3  SERMONS. 

•while  their  volnntarv  service,  their  cordial  and  lia- 
bitnal  devotion,  was  expended  on  his  enemies  and 
rivals.  If  this  is  the  absurdity  which  we  condemn, 
our  judgment  is  a  just  one  ;  but  let  us  impartially  con- 
demn it  wlierover  we  may  find  it,  whether  in  ancient 
or  in  modern  times,  whether  in  eastern  or  in  western 
climes,  whether  in  heathendom  or  Christendom, 
whether  in  our  neighbors  or  ourselves. 

To  facilitate  this  self-denying  process  in  your  case 
and  my  own,  let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  some  ways 
in  which  precisely  the  same  folly,  and  with  incom- 
parably less  extenuation,  may  be  practised  and  is 
practised  now  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and  here, 
amidst  the  blaze  of  gospel  light.  Let  us  not  shrink 
from  the  unwelcome  truth,  if  it  should  be  discovered 
that  this  race  of  idolaters  is  not  extinct  ;  that  "  unto 
this  day  they  do  after  the  former  manners ;"  fearing 
the  Lord  and  serving  their  own  gods ;  "  as  did  their 
fathers,  so  do  they  unto  this  day." 

To  make  the  transition  easier  from  the  heathen  to 
the  Christian  world,  we  may  begin  with  our  own 
heathen,  the  heathen  at  our  ov/n  doors,  in  our  own 
streets  :  I  mean  those  who  approach  nearest  to  the 
heathen  both  in  the  positive  and  negative  circumstan- 
ces of  their  spiritual  state,  their  ignorance  of  truth, 
and  their  enslavement  to  sin.  Look  at  the  worst  part 
of  your  population,  as  it  pours  its  turbid  streams  along 
in  times  of  more  than  usual  excitement ;  hear  its  mut- 
tered or  vociferated  curses  ;  mark  the  bestial  character 
of  its  propensities  and  habits.  All  this  you  have  seen, 
and  as  you  saw  it,  you  have  been  disposed  perhaps  to 
say  that  here,  at  least,  there  is  no  divided  worship  or 


I 


2  KINGS  17,  33.  1G9 

allegiance  ;  here,  at  least,  are  men  who  serve  their  own 
gods,  but  "who  do  not,  even  in  profession,  fear  the 
Lord.  Xo,  in  profession,  certainly  not ;  in  form,  in 
purpose,  not  at  all ;  but  do  yon  think  they  never  fear 
him,  i.  e.  feel  afraid  of  him  ?  Be  not  preci^Ditate  in 
drawing  such  conclusions. 

In  the  vast  mixed  multitude  of  those  -whom  you 
regard  as  the  most  ignorant  and  reckless  and  besotted 
of  your  countrymen,  observe,  on  some  occasion  of 
extraordinary  concourse,  how  many  haggard  faces, 
and  contracted  brows,  and  strangely  gleaming  eyes 
encounter  yours.  Do  you  believe  all  this  expression 
of  anxiety  and  dread  to  be  the  fruit  of  poverty,  or 
sickness,  or  domestic  cares  ?  If  so,  you  are  mistaken  ; 
for  the  same  expression  may  be  seen  in  those  who  are 
not  poor,  who  are  not  sick,  or  outw^ardly  distressed  at 
all ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  its  absence  may  be  marked 
in  thousands  who  are  poorer  and  who  suffer  more  from 
care  and  sickness  than  do  any  of  those  whom  you  are 
observing.  There  is  something  back  of  all  these 
canscs  to  produce  this  uniformity  of  counteiumce,  and 
I  will  tell  3'ou  what  it  is — it  is  fkae.  Yes,  even  the 
boldest  and  most  insolent  dcfier  of  all  outward  peril, 
the  ft)olliardiest  ])rovoker  of  temptation  and  destruc- 
tion, at  tlie  very  moment  when  he  is  repelling,  with  vin- 
dictive rajre,  the  cliaro-e  of  cowardice,  is  often  chilled 
with  fear,  unqualified,  unmitigated  fear ;  and  tluit  of 
the  most  paral3'sing  kind,  because  it  is  a  vague  fear  and 
of  an  invisible  object — a  fear  which  is  written  in  tlie 
face  of  some  as  legibly  as  on  the  brow  of  the  first  mur- 
derer. We  sometimes  speak  1  ightly  of  the  fear  of  ghosts 
and  phantoms  as  a  childish  folly  ;  but  it  is  often  noth- 

VOL.  II. — 8 


170  SERMONS. 

irg  more  tlian  a  disgnised  fear  of  the  great  avencjer ; 
the  man  slii'inksand  trembles  as  seeing  him  who  is  in- 
visible. Tell  him  of  storms  and  earthquakes,  and  he 
shudders,  though  the  danger  be  distant  or  long  past. 
Tell  him  of  sudden  casualties,  and  he  turns  jale, 
though  the  same  form  of  accident,  in  his  case,  be  im- 
possible. Tell  him  of  pestilence,  of  fever,  plague,  or 
cholera,  as  slowly,  steadily  approaching,  and  judge 
for  yourself  whether  the  emotion  caused  by  this  an- 
nouncement can  be  all  referred  to  dread  of  bodily  suf- 
fering or  even  of  death  as  a  physical  change  only. 
No,  his  thoughts  run  onward  to  the  dread  tribunal 
where  he  is  to  stand,  and  to  which  this  may  be  his 
summons.  What  he  now  feels  is  that  "  fearful  look- 
ing for  of  judgment  and  fiery  indignation,"  which  the 
apostle  represents  as  following  the  obstinate  rejection 
of  an  offered  Saviour.  I  do  not  mean  that  this  is 
always  present  to  the  mind ;  it  may  be  rare,  it  may 
be  momentary.  These  forebodings  may  but  occa- 
sionally interrupt  the  ordinary  current  of  the  thoughts 
and  feelings,  like  a  dark  cloud  swept  across  the  sun, 
or  a  lurid  flash,  making  darkness  visible.  The  at- 
tempt to  banish  such  reflections  may  be  commonly 
successful,  and  the  man,  instead  of  being  weaned  from 
his  accustomed  cares  or  pleasures,  may  plunge  into 
them  more  madly  and  more  desperately,  for  the  very 
reason  that  he  wishes  to  avoid  these  fearful  premo- 
nitions. He  may  never  cross  the  threshold  of  a 
church — he  may  never  look  between  the  covers  of  a 
I]il,le— he  may  shrink  from  the  touch  of  a  religions 
book — he  may  rnn  from  the  presence  of  religious  men 
as  he  would  shun  contagion — but  he  has  that  within 


2  KINGS  17,  33.  1^1 

liim  which  he  cannot  flee  from  or  forever  silence; 
he  is  guilty  and  he  knows  it,  and  he  knows  that  God 
will  punish  sin,  and  that  his  own  time  may  be  near 
at  hand ;  and  often,  in  the  intervals  of  business,  oi 
the  necessary  lulls  of  his  tempestuous  enjoyments,  in 
the  silent  watches  of  the  night,  or  on  a  sick-bed,  oi 
when  some  affliction  forces  him  to  serious  reflection, 
he  hears  that  whisper  which  he  heard  in  childhood  ;  a 
mysterious  voice  syllables  his  name,  as  it  has  often 
done  before,  and  mutters  of  some  fearful  secret  soon 
to  be  disclosed.  iN^ay,  the  same  unwelcome  premoni- 
tion sometimes  reaches  him  when  all  around  is  gay 
and  joyous,  in  the  very  moment  of  indulgence,  with 
the  cup  of  pleasure  at  his  lips,  he  hears  that  sound ; 
he  knows  not  whence  it  comes,  he  sometimes  even 
knows  not  what  it  says  ;  the  very  vagueness  of  the 
warning  makes  it  more  terrific.  His  very  ignorance  of 
God  and  of  religion  adds  a  strange,  peculiar  terror  to 
these  pangs  of  conscience ;  and  the  man,  however 
brave  at  other  times,  is  really  afraid ;  he  fears,  he 
fears  the  Lord,  although  he  knows  him  not;  he  fears 
him  as  the  unseen  and  anonymous  avenger  who  has 
followed  him  through  life,  and  now  awaits  his  death  ; 
and  if,  in  spite  of  all  this,  he  still  plunges  deeper  into 
worldly  cares  or  sensual  indulgence,  and  vainly  strives 
to  seek  oblivion  from  them,  this  only  shows  that,  like 
the  settlers  of  Samaria,  he  fears  the  Lord  and  serves 
his  own  gods. 

The  case  of  which  I  have  been  speaking  is  the 
case  of  those  who  are  excluded,  or  exclude  them- 
selves from  the  operation  of  all  ordinary  methods  of 
religious  influence — who  are  not  permitted,  or  refuse 


1Y2  SERMONS. 

to  liear  the  gospel — who  avoid  association  with  its 
preachers  and  professors — and  who  lead  a  heathen 
life  on  Cliristian  ground.  Such  may  well  be  likened 
to  the  foreign  idolaters  who  occupied  the  territory  of 
the  ten  tribes,  in  immediate  juxtaposition  with  the 
chosen  people  ;  and  in  such  it  may  not  seem  surpris- 
ing or  unnatural  that,  like  their  prototypes  in  his- 
tory, they  should  fear  God  and  serve  the  Devil.  But 
is  such  a  compromise  or  combination  possible  within 
the  precincts  of  the  church  itself — within  the  bounds 
of  even  nominal  Christianity — among  the  decent  and 
respectful  hearers  of  the  gospel  and  professed  believers 
in  its  truth  ?  Can  they  be  charged  with  this  stupen- 
dous folly  of  dividing  or  multiplying  what  they  wor- 
ship— giving  half  to  good  and  half  to  evil,  believing 
half  in  truth  and  half  in  falsehood,  living  half  in 
light  and  half  in  darkness  ?  Perhaps  the  very  form 
which  I  have  given  to  the  question,  may  suggest  an 
answer,  by  presenting  no  exaggerated  picture  of  the 
life  which  some  of  us  are  actually  living. 

You  fear  the  Lord  ;  you  are  unwilling  to  provoke 
his  anger ;  you  acknowledge  your  obligation  to  serve 
him,  and  you  discharge  that  obligation  by  attending 
on  his  worship ;  but  is  he  the  master  that  you  daily 
serve  ?  "Where  is  your  treasure  and  your  heart  ?  By 
whose  will  do  you  regiilate  your  life  ?  A  man  may  so 
far  fear  the  Lord  as  to  frequent  His  house,  and  join  in 
the  external  acts  of  worship  there;  but  what  if  he  has 
other  gods  at  home,  and  there  bows  down  to  Mammon 
or  to  Belial?  AVhat  if  the  world  is  in  his  heart,  and 
the  prince  of  this  world  on  the  throne  of  his  affec- 
tions?    Will  the  s^ain  of  these  habitual  idolatries  be 


2  KINGS  17,  33.  173 

washed  out  by  patiently  cndurii^g  the  penance  of  a 
Sabbatli  service  ?  Will  the  Lord,  who  is  thus  feared 
with  a  slavish  dread  of  his  displeasure,  be  contented, 
for  the  sake  of  this,  to  pass  by  all  the  rest — all  that  is 
done,  or  all  that  is  not  done,  in  defiance  of  his  abso- 
lute authority  and  positive  command?  My  hearers! 
let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  There  are  idol-temples 
sometimes  reared  against  the  very  walls  of  Jehovah's 
sanctuary.  There  are  heathen  oracles  which  give 
forth  their  responses  "  fast  by  the  oracle  of  God." 
There  are  those  who  seem  to  fear  the  Lord  on  one  day 
in  the  week,  but  during  all  the  rest  of  their  existence 
are  unceasingly  employed  in  serving  their  own  gods. 
The  charge  wdiich  is  here  brought  is  not  one  of 
liypocrisy ,  It  is  one  of  delusion.  I  do  not  say  that 
those  of  whom  I  speak  pretend  to  fear  the  Lord  when 
they  know  they  fear  him  not.  I  say  that  they  helieve 
they  fear  him,  when  in  fact  they  fear  him  not.  Or 
rather,  which  is  really  the  same  thing  in  another  form, 
they  do  fear  him ;  but  it  is  not  with  a  fear  which 
honours,  or  conciliates,  or  pleases  him,  as  thc_y  im- 
agine ;  and  here,  just  here,  is  their  delusion.  They 
are  sincere  enough  in  thiid^ing  that  they  fear  God ; 
but  they  are  terribly  mistaken  in  supposing  that  they 
fear  him  as  they  ought.  This  is  a  painful  truth  to 
those  of  us  whom  it  concerns ;  but  it  is  one  which, 
sooner  or  later,  must  be  told.  And  it  requires  not 
many  words  to  tell  it.  It  may  be  summed  up  in  this 
short  sentence  :  If  .you  do  not  serve  the  Lord,  you  do 
not  fear  him.  You  may  attend  upon  his  worship, 
you  may  I'cspcct  religion,  you  may  believe  the  Bible 
to  be  true,  you  may  hope  to  be  saved  tl trough  Christ, 
you  may  expect  to  die  the  death  of  the  righteous. 


174  SERMONS. 

Ijiit  how  do  yon  live?  TTow  fire  yon  l.ving  nov;] 
From  wluit  source  is  your  present  liap})ine5S  derived? 
"What  influence  do  you  exert?  What  are  yon  dc.ing, 
not  as  a  weekly  recreation,  or  a  mei'e  periodical  so- 
lemnity, but  as  a  daily  business,  for  the  honour  of 
God  and  the  good  of  j-onr  fellow-men  ?  If  your  fear 
of  the  Lord  shows  itself  in  tliese  particulars,  and 
in  the  constant  dispositions  and  affections  of  your 
mind,  it  may  be  genuine.  But  if  you  fear  God  only 
in  the  churcli,  or  only  on  the  sabbath  ;  if  ^-our  life, 
beyond  these  bounds,  is  atheistical ;  i.  e.,  if  you  live 
precisely  as  you  would  if  you  believed  that  thei'e  is 
no  God  ;  if  your  fear  of  him  is  nothing  but  a  natural 
nnwillingness  to  suffer  at  his  hands,  and  a  consequent 
desire  to  avert  his  wrath  ;  if  you  joyfully  redeem  from 
his  service  what  you  can,  to  be  expended  on  the 
world  ;  if  you  come  before  him  reekino;  from  the  sor- 
did  cares  or  frivolous  pleasures  of  a  selrish  and  nn- 
j^rofitable  life,  and  then  leap  back  from  the  threshold 
of  his  presence  into  the  hot  and  steaming  atmosphere 
of  that  same  world  from  which  your  fears  had  de- 
tached ycni  for  an  hour  or  a  day  ; — if  this  is  your  ex- 
perience, or  any  thing  like  this,  however  clear  it  may 
be  to  your  own  mind  that  you  fear  the  Lord,  it  is  still 
more  clear  to  others  that  you  serve  your  own  god's. 
Is  not  this  an  object  of  compassion  ?  Has  this 
delusion  no  share  in  the  pity  which  we  lavish  on 
the  heathen  ?  Yes,  to  those  really  enlightened  there 
is  something  peculiarly  pitiable  in  the  state  whijb 
I  have  been  describing.  The  degree  of  knowledge 
really  possessed,  and  the  hopes  so  fondly  cherished, 
only  render    their  inevitable    disappointment   more 


2  KINGS  17,  S3.  J  75 

affecting  to  the  heart  of  one  m'1  0  can  foresee  it. 
Looking  out  from  the  inner  sancti  arj  into  which  he 
has  found  access  by  tlic  blood  of  the  everlasting  cov- 
enant, he  compassionates  not  only  those  who  still 
wander  in  the  court  of  the  Gentiles,  but  those  who 
have  penetrated  into  the  interior  enclosure,  within  sight 
of  the  laver  and  the  altar  of  atonement,  or  have  even 
found  their  way  into  the  holy  place,  and  there  con- 
tinue, unsuspicious  that  the  holiest  of  all  is  still  be- 
yond them,  that  the  mercy  seat  is  not  yet  reached, 
and  that,  without  this,  neither  the  loaves  spread  upon 
the  golden  table,  the  light  that  streams  from  the 
golden  candlestick,  nor  the  incense  that  rolls  upward 
from  the  golden  altar,  can  be  theirs,  or  made  availa- 
ble for  them  ;  that  notwithstanding  their  near  bodily 
approach  to  God,  they  are  still  far  from  him ; — over 
such  a  sight  the  true  penitent  might  weep  even  in  the 
presence  of  the  ark  and  under  the  shadowing  pinions 
of  the  cherubim.  Especially  might  this  be  the  effect 
if  these  deluding  worshippers  were  seen  leaving  their 
idols  at  the  entrance  of  the  temple,  and  casting  many 
a  fond  backward  glance  at  these  beloved  objects  from 
the  holy  phice,  or  even  bringing  them  in,  half  con- 
cealed, beneath  some  flimsy  pretext,  or  some  i'air  ap- 
pearance, aiid  then  hastening  ibrth  to  worship  them  ; 
yes,  scarcely  waiting  tHl  the  veil  has  again  iiillen  on 
the  sacred  scene,  before  they  drop  down  in  the  dust 
before  the  gods  of  their  idolatry.  This,  this  is  a  spec- 
tacle to  draw  tears  at  the  very  mercy-seat  and  under 
the  cloud  of  the  divine  presence.  But,  sad  as  is 
this,  Avould  to  God  it  were  the  worst!  It  were 
Burely  enough  that  we,  who  profess  to  Jiave  found 


176  SERMONS. 

access  to  the  mercy-seat,  should  be  compelled  to 
sorrow  over  those  who,  though  externally  almost  as 
near  il  as  ourselves,  are  still,  in  heart,  as  far  from  it 
as  ever,  and  who  serve  their  own  gods  in  the  presence 
of  Jehovah.  But  what  if  our  lamentations  should  be 
interrupted  by  a  voice  from  the  holy  of  holies,  saying, 
"The  time  is  come  that  judgment  must  begin  at  the 
house  of  God  !  "  *  AVhat  if  the  cloud  should  rise  or 
open,  and  disclose  to  ns  the  fearful  sight  of  idols  in 
immediate  contact  with  the  ark  of  the  covenant  and 
the  mercy- seat  itself! 

This  is  no  hideous  imagination  of  a  wild  impossi- 
bility. The  thing  supposed  is  not  impossible  at  all. 
It  is  a  palpable  reality.  It  has  been,  is  now,  and  will 
be  hereafter,  until  human  corruption  ceases  to  exist, 
or  is  no  longer  suifered  to  exert  an  influence  on  true 
believers.  False  gods  maj  be  brought  into  the  holy 
of  holies.  I  speak  not  now  of  false  profession,  or  of 
total  self-deception,  but  of  those  wdio  give  evidence  of 
having  really  passed  from  death  unto  life.  Even  these 
may  cling  to  idols;  even  these  may  give  themselves 
to  other  masters ;  even  these  may  fear  the  Lord  and 
serve  their  own  gods;  and  in  so  doing,  I  should  hesi- 
tate to  intend  the  possibility  of  Christians,  even  by 
profession,  being  tainted  w4th  the  poison  of  a  literal 
idolatry,  did  not  notorious  contemporary  facts  demon- 
strate the  existence  of  this  monstrous  combination. 
In  proof  of  this,  we  need  not  go  to  India,  and  contem- 
plate the  connivance  of  a  Christian  government  at 
heathenish  abominations,  and  its  violation  of  the  rights 
of  Christian  consciences,  in  order  to  maintain  those  of 

*  1  Peter  4,  11. 


2  KINGS  17,  83.  177 

a  heathen  population,  which  it  ought  to  Iiave  cnh'ght- 
ened  in  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  We  need  not 
join  in  the  censure  which  the  world  has  passed  upon 
these  false  concessions,  or  attempt  to  trace  the  marks 
of  the  divine  displeasure  in  the  blood  and  ashes  of 
that  great  catastrophe,  the  sound  of  which  has  not  yet 
died  away  in  Europe,  Asia,  or  America  ;  because,  ad- 
mitting all  that  is  alleged,  or  even  all  that  is  confer- 
red, and  rating  at  the  highest  mark  the  guilt  of  such 
connivance  or  encouragement,  it  cannot,  after  all,  be 
justly  charged  with  actual  participation  in  the  idola 
try  itself,  but  only -with  a  sinful  and  pernicious  tolera- 
tion of  it,  on  the  part  of  those  who  really  despised  or 
pitied  it,  as  the  wretched  but  Incurable  delusion  of  a 
half-enlightened  and  inferior  race.  But  what  shall 
we  say  of  those  who,  nearer  home,  and  in  a  Christian 
country,  and  amidst  the  light  of  a  reformed  and  puri- 
fied religion — nay,  perhaps  with  the  profession  of  it 
on  their  lips  and  on  their  conscience,  can  sanction  by 
their  presence,  or  sustain  by  their  pecuniar}^  gifts,  a 
worship  which,  though  nominally  Christian,  they  con- 
fess to  be  idolatrous — crowding  its  sanctuaries  even 
with  their  children,  led,  perhaps,  by  simple  curiosity, 
but  strengthening  the  faith  of  others  by  example,  and 
themselves  incurrinc:  the  tremendous  risk  of  learninfj 
first  to  tolerate,  and  then  to  admire,  and  finally  to 
worship  what  at  first  they  viewed  with  wonder  and 
contempt.  Be  not  surprised,  my  brethren,  if  you 
should  encounter  such  phenomena  in  your  fields  of 
ministerial  labour ;  and  if  you  do,  be  not  afraid  to 
tell  those  who  exhibit  them,  that  such  compliances,  so 
far  from  being  justified  by  simultaneous  or  alternate 
vol.  II. — S* 


178  SERMONS. 

acts  of  purer  worship,  or  by  the  conthiual  profession 
of  a  purer  faith,  are  thereby  only  brought  into  a  closer 
and  more  hideous  assimilation  to  the  mixed  religion 
of  these  ancient  settlers  in  the  land  of  Israel,  who,  in 
that  consecrated  soil,  and  not  far  from  the  temple  of 
Jehovah,  almost  in  sight  of  its  majestic  rites,  and 
within  hearing  of  its  solemn  music,  while  they  owned 
the  true  God  as  a  God  of  judgment,  and  experienced 
his  wrath  as  an  avenger — were  so  mad  upon  their 
idols,  that  with  fatal  inconsistency  "  they  feared  the 
Lord,  and  served  their  own  gods." 

But,  returning  to  the  figurative  spiritual  meaning 
of  idolatry,  with  which  we  are  immediately  concerned, 
and  to  its  fearful  combination  with  the  worship  of  the 
true  God,  which  I  have  described  as  introducing  idols 
into  the  most  holy  place — as  a  complete  enumeration 
of  these  idols  would  be  neitlier  possible  nor  needful, 
let  me  sum  up  a  vast  number  of  them  under  the  col- 
lective name,  so  often  used  in  Scripture,  of  the  world 
— the  world,  including  all  the  various  and  complex 
influences  exercised  by  men,  not  only  as  detached  in- 
dividuals, but  as  an  aggregate  body,  called  society — 
the  various  allurements  by  which  true  Christians  are  se- 
duced into  compliance  with  its  questionable  practices. 
It  may  be  under  the  pretence  or  in  the  hope  of  doing 
good,  without  experiencing  evil — the  oldest  and  most 
specious  of  the  arts  by  which  the  tempter  has  achieved 
his  conquests,  since  he  whispered  in  the  ear  of  Eve, 
"  Ye  shall  be  as  gods,  knowing  good  and  evil,"  and 
displayed  to  her  the  fatal  tree  so  "  good  for  food,"  so 
"  pleasant  to  the  eyes,"  and  so  "  desirable  to  make  one 
wise."     Here  is  an  idol  temple — vast,  magnificent,  in- 


2  KINGS  n,  S3.  X79 

viting,  at  tlie  very  threshold  of  our  churches, — nay, 
out  of  which  idols  are  continually  brought  into  Jeho- 
vah's presence,  not  by  false  professors  merely,  but  by 
deluded  worshippers,  who  fain  would  fear  the  Lord, 
and  w^orship  their  own  gods. 

But  what  are  the  gods  which  may  thus  be  served 
by  those  who,  at  the  same  time,  seem  to  fear  the 
Lord  ?  Leaving  wholly  out  of  view,  as  I  have  said, 
the  case  of  those  who  worship  self  and  the  world,  un- 
der the  mask  of  hypocritical  profession,  or  the  fatal 
spell  of  "strong  delusions,"  let  us  look  exclusively  at 
those  who  seem,  sincerely  to  feai'  God,  but  who  do 
not  serve  him  with  a  perfect  heart,  because  their  affec- 
tions are  divided  and  seduced  by  idols.  What  are 
these  idols?  I  might  almost  say,  their  name  is  Le- 
gion. I  can  mention  but  a  few  of  them.  But  leavino- 
these  and  other  more  familiar  forms  of  this  idolatrous 
delusion,  let  us  glance  at  some  less  palpable,  and 
more  compatible  with  light  and  even  genuine  profes- 
sion. Such  is  the  idol  of  self-righteousness,  a  very 
different  thing  from  self-indulgence.  While  the  lat- 
ter owns  no  obligation  to  obey  any  other  master  than 
its  own  imperious  lusts,  the  other  recognizes  God's 
authority,  consents  to  do  his  will,  and  thiiiks  it  does 
it — yes,  and  makes  a  merit  of  it.  Its  very  reliance, 
or  professed  reliance,  on  the  merit  of  the  Saviour,  is 
transformed  into  an  idol,  and  usurps  the  honour  due 
exclusively  to  Christ.  It  submits  to  the  righteousness 
of  God  in  order  to  exalt  its  own.  Of  such  it  may  bo 
said,  without  injustice,  that  the}'  fear  the  Lord,  and 
serve  their  own  gods. 

Closely  allied  to  this  idol  is  another — the  idol  of 


180  SEKMONS. 

spiritual  pride — a  disposition  to  exn.t  in  the  extent 
and  depth  of  our  religious  experience,  and  in  the  va- 
riety of  our  attainments,  a  complacent  estimate  of  our 
own  love  to  God,  a  zeal  for  his  honour,  and  submis- 
sion to  Jiis  will,  as  meritorious  achievements  of  our 
own,  and  not  as  the  gratuitous  products  of  his  sover- 
eign grace.  Alas !  how  many  sincere  Christians  are 
led  far  astray  by  this  insidious  seducer,  till  at  last 
they  seem  to  fear  the  Lord  still,  but  to  serve  their  own 
gods. 

To  the  same  race  and  famil}^  of  idols  belongs  that 
Pharisaical  censorious  spirit  which  regards  the  es- 
sence of  religion  as  consisting  in  vindictive  opposition 
to  the  sins  of  our  fellow-men,  and  imagines  that  the 
surest  way  to  rise  in  the  divine  life  is  to  lower  our 
neighbours,  Avliether  saints  or  sinners,  drawing  a  mor- 
bid satisfoction  from  this  painful  view  of  others  as  no 
better  than  ourselves,  and  expending  on  this  object 
the  attention  which  might  better  have  been  given  to 
our  own  defects,  or  better  still,  to  the  desire  and  pur- 
suit of  excellence.  This,  too,  is  to  fear  the  Lord  and 
serve  our  own  gods. 

Further  enumeration  is  superfluous.  It  is  enough 
to  know  the  general  fact  that  such  things  are  possible, 
are  real.  If  we  do  know  it,  and  acknowledge  it,  what 
shall  we  do  next?  Let  judgment  begin  at  the  house 
of  God.  Let  every  image  which  defiles  it  be  cast 
j.own  without  mercy  from  its  pedestal  and  dashed  in 
pieces,  like  Dagon  on  the  threshold  of  his  temple. 
Let  us,  like  Jacob  and  his  hoi.sehold,  put  away  our 
false  gods,  before  wc  come  to  Bethel  to  renew  our 
vows.     Instead  of  wxeping  over  the  delusions  of  our 


2  KINGS  17,  S3.  181 

neiglibours,  let  ns  first  seek  to  liave  onr  own  clisiielled. 
Let  those  "\\ho  gaze  from  without  into  the  temple  of 
the  Lord,  or  from  its  holy  place  into  the  holiest  of  all, 
be  under  no  mistake,  or  even  doubt,  as  to  the  object 
of  our  worship.  Through  the  cloud  of  incense  which 
ascends  from  our  altar,  let  not  even  the  unfriendly  or 
malignant  eye  detect  the  semblance  of  an  idol  placed 
above  it.  Let  friends  and  enemies  alike  be  constrained 
to  acknowledge  that  our  Lord  is  one  Lord,  and  that 
we  his  people  have  no  other  gods  before  him.  Then, 
with  our  consciences  cleared  from  dead  works,  to 
serve  the  living  God,  we  shall  be  able,  with  con- 
sistency an'd  good  hope  of  success,  to  say  to  those  who 
hear  the  gospel  with  us,  but  have  not  yet  avouched 
the  Lord  to  be  their  God — Forsake  your  idols,  crucify 
the  flesh,  die  to  the  world,  serve  him  whom  you  fear 
already,  fear  him  no  longer  with  a  slavish  dread,  but 
Avitli  a  filial  reverence,  believe  in  him  whom  we  trust 
as  our  Saviour — "Walk  about  Zion,  and  go  round 
about  her :  tell  the  towers  thereof,  mark  ye  well  her 
bulwarks,  consider  her  palaces,  that  ye  may  tell  it  to 
the  generation  following;  for  this  God  is  our  God 
forever  and  ever :  ho  will  be  our  guide  even  unto 
death."  Yes,  and  then  with  this  accession  to  our 
strength,  we  may  go  forth  beyond  the  precincts  of  the 
sanctuary  into  the  highways  and  the  hedges  of  the 
world,  in  search  of  those  neglected  and  bewildered 
outcasts  who  are  trembling  at  the  presence  of  an  un- 
known God,  who  have  fearful  forebodings  of  his  wrath, 
with  no  cheering  anticipations  of  his  mercy,  fearing 
the  Lord,  and  serving  their  own  gods.  Yes,  even 
these  may  be  compelled  to  come  in,  to  join  the  pro- 


182  SERMONS. 

cession  of  experienced  saints  and  recent  converts  from 
the  M'oi-]d,  as  it  draws  near  to  the  footstool  of  God's 
mercy,  and  pointing  to  the  fragments  of  forsaken 
idols  which  lie  strewn  around  it,  sa}^,  "  O  Lord  our 
God,  other  lords  heside  thee  have  had  dominion  over 
US ;  but  by  thee  only  will  we  make  mention  of  thy 
name.  They  are  dead,  they  shall  not  live;  they  are 
deceased,  they  shall  not  rise ;  thou  hast  visited  and 
destroyed  them,  and  made  all  their  memory  to  perish." 


X. 


PniLippiANS  4,  13. — I  can   do   all  tliiugs   through   Christ  which 
6trengtheneth  me. 

Chkist  is  revealed  to  lis  in  various  cliaracters ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  relation  he  sustains  to  his. own  peo- 
ple is  presented  under  various  figures.  Sometimes  he 
is  represented  as  their  redeemer,  who  sets  them  free 
from  bondage  ;  sometimes  as  their  pi'ophet,  who  in- 
structs them ;  sometimes  as  their  king,  who  protects 
and  governs  them ;  sometimes  as  their  priest,  who 
makes  atonement  for  them ;  sometimes  as  the  sacri- 
fice itself,  which  is  offered  for  them  ;  sometimes  as 
their  friend,  sometimes  as  their  physician,  sometimes 
as  their  provider,  sometimes  as  their  strengthener. 
It  is  in  this  last  character  that  he  is  presented  by  the 
text,  which  may  be  considered  as  expressing  not  only 
the  personal  experience  of  Paul,  but  of  all  who  are 
partakers  of  the  "  like  precious  faith."  In  this  char- 
acter it  well  becomes  us  to  contemplate  Christ.  MVe 
all  need  strength  ;  we  all  need  one  to  strengthen  us. 
"Whether  conscious  or  unconscious  of  our  weakness, 
we  a7'e  weak.     Our  very  strength  is  weakness.    TVe 


184  SEKMOXS. 

may  trust  it,  but  the  more  we  trust  it,  the  more  com- 
pletely shall  we  be  deceived.  This  is  a  defect  which 
no  effort  of  our  own  can  supply.  TVe  have  not  strength 
enough  to  be  strong.  The  exertion  of  weakness  can- 
not produce  strength.  Imbecility,  nay,  impotence,  in 
spiritual  matters,  is  a  part  of  our  hereditary  curse. 
We  must  look  out  of  ourselves  for  its  removal.  •  And 
to  save  us  from  a  vain  search  in  forbidden  and  unsat- 
isfying quarters,  the  word  of  God  sets  Christ  at  once 
before  us  as  our  strength,  our  strengthener.  What  Paul 
says,  every  true  believer,  in  his  measure,  has  a  right, 
and  is  disposed,  to  say :  I  can  do  all  things  through 
Christ  enabling  me.  Of  myself  I  can  do  nothing  ;  but 
through  Christ  I  can  do  all  things,  all  that  is  obliga- 
tory, all  that  is  necessary,  either  for  my  own  safety, 
fur  the  good  of  others,  or  for  the  honour  of  Christ 
himself 

In  further- considering  this  gracious  aspect  of  our 
Saviour's  character  and  work,  as  a  source  of  spiritual 
strength  to  those  who  have  no  strength  in  themselves, 
it  may  be  conducive  to  the  clearness  and  distinctness  of 
our  views,  if  we  inquire  (1)  how  he  strengthens  us,  and 
(2)  for  what  he  strengthens  us,  i.  e.,  in  what  particu- 
lar emergencies,  or  in  reference  to  what  specific 
objects. 

First,  then,  in  what  way,  and  by  M'hat  means, 
does  Christ  strengthen  us?  I  answer,  negatively,  not 
by  miracle  or  magic,  not  by  acting  on  us  without  our 
knowledge  or  against  our  will,  but  through  our  own 
intelligent  and  active  powers.  I  answer  positively, 
and  particularly,  in  the  first  place,  that  he  strengthens 
by  instructing   us,    enlightening   our  minds   in   the 


PHILIPPIANS  4,  13.  185 

knowledge  of  himself  and  of  ourselves,  and  especially 
by  making  us  to  feel  our  weakness  and  to  understand 
its  causes.  He  shows  us  that  it  is  a  moral  weakness, 
and  connected  with  a  universal  moral  depravation, 
involving  all  our  powers  and  affections,  from  the  su- 
preme control  of  which  the  Christian  is  delivered,  but 
not  from  its  entire  influence.  lie  shows  us  our  de- 
pendence on  God's  mercy  for  relief  from  this  debili- 
tated helpless  state,  and  teaches  us  to  seek  it  in  him- 
self Thus  tlie  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  as  our  prophet,  or 
infallible  instructor,  strengthens  us. 

Again,  he  strengthens  us  by  his  example.  It  is 
not  b}^  precept  or  by  doctrine  merely,  that  he  works 
this  necessary  change  uj^on  us.  He  has  not  merely 
told  us  what  is  rio-ht.  lie  has  shown  us  liow  to  do  it. 
He  has  done  it  himself  He  has  embodied  in  his  own 
life  what  might  have  been  inoperative  if  set  forth 
only  in  theory.  This  is  one  of  the  unspeakable  ad- 
vantages arising  from  our  Saviour's  incarnation,  the 
community  of  nature  which  exists  between  us.  lie 
has  set  us  an  example  ;  he  has  gone  befoi'e  us.  When 
we  liesitate,  or  go  astray,  or  stumble,  we  not  only 
hear  his  voice  behind  us,  saying,  This  is  the  way. 
walk  ye  in  it,  but  we  see  his  form  before  us,  some- 
times nearer,  sometimes  further,  sometimes  more,  and 
sometimes  less  distinct,  according  to  the  keenness  of 
our  vision,  and  the  clearness  of  our  spiritual  atmos- 
phere. But  even  when  our  eyes  are  dimmest,  and 
our  heavens  are  haziest,  if  we  are  believers,  we  can 
still  see  something.  Through  the  mist,  and  smoke, 
and  dust,  and  over  or  between  a  thousand  intervening 
objects,  we  can  still  discern  a  form,  like  that  of  the 


186  SERMOXS. 

Son  of  man,  not  merely  pointing  out  the  patli,  but 
often  breaking  it,  clearing  away  obstructions,  opening 
nnexpected  passages,  surmounting  obstacles,  trans- 
forming difficulties  into  helps,  levelling  mountains, 
filling  up  valleys,  bridging  streams  that  seemed  im- 
passable. Oh,  what  a  blessed  work  is  this  in  which 
the  Son  of  God  condescends  to  be  employed  for  our 
advantage.  IIow  can  our  hopes  sink,  or  our  fears 
prevail,  while  this  forerunner  is  in  sight ;  and  even 
when  he  ceases  to  be  visible,  because  we  fall  so  far 
behind,  or  drop  upon  the  earth  exhausted,  we  can 
still  trace  his  footsteps  where  we  lie,  and  sometimes 
track  him  by  the  tears  and  blood  with  which  the  path 
is  moistened.  At  the  sight  of  these,  the  fainting 
Christian  often  breathes  afresh,  recovers  new  strength, 
and  starts  up  to  resume  his  i3ainful  journey,  willing 
even  to  take  up  his  cross  in  imutation  of  his  Master, 
who  has  left  us  an  example  tliat  we  should  follow  his 
steps.  Brethren,  Christ  strengthens  us  by  his  ex- 
ample. 

But  precept  and  example  are  not  all.  "We  might 
have  these  in  perfection,  and  lie  motionless.  There 
must  be  something  to  excite  and  prompt,  as  well  as 
guide.  We  may  hear  Christ's  precepts,  and  yet  not 
obey  them.  We  may  see  his  examj)le,  and  yet  not 
follow  it.  With  both  in  full  view,  we  may  still  be 
impotent  to  spiritual  good,  unless  some  new  spring  of 
activity  be  set  at  work  within  us,  just  as  a  machine 
may  be  complete  and  well  adjusted,  yet  without  effect 
or  use  until  the  moving  power  is  applied.  But  when 
it  is  ap])lied,  when  all  is  set  in  motion,  how  distinctly 
do  the  parts  perform  their  office  and  harmoniously 


PHILIPPIANS  4,  13.  18Y 

contribute  to  the  aggregate  result!  In  one  particu- 
lar, this  illustration  does  not  hold  good.  "We  are  not 
machines,  propelled  by  an  external  force,  witliout  o, 
conscious  co-operation  on  our  own  part.  We  are  ac- 
tive and  spontaneous  in  our  spiritual  exercises ;  but 
we  have  no  such  exercises  until  set  in  motion.  If  we 
can  imagine  a  machine  composed  of  living,  conscious 
parts,  but  perfectly  inert,  till  started  by  an  imjiulse  from 
without,  and  then  performing  its  appointed  functions 
with  entire  precision,  we  may  have  an  idea  of  our  spir- 
itual state.  Or,  to  drop  the  questionable  figure  of  ma- 
chinery, imagine  that  you  see  a  living  man,  set  down 
to  the  performance  of  a  given  task,  with  his  materials, 
his  instruQtions,  and  his  models,  all  before  him,  but 
completely  paralyzed,  unable  to  move  hand  or  foot. 
He  is  a  man ;  he  is  a  living  man  ;  he  knows,  he  un- 
derstands, the  work  before  him,  and  he  has  within  his 
reach  whatever  is  required  for  the  doing  of  it;  yet  he 
neither  does  nor  can  perform  it.  That  paralysis  as 
utterly  prevents  it  as  if  he  were  dead  or  absent.  But 
suppose  that  fatal  spell  to  be  dissolved  by  skill,  or 
chance,  or  magic,  or  a  sudden  divine  interposition, 
and  see  how  instantaneously  the  mind  and  body  move 
in  concert,  how  they  act  and  react  upon  each  other, 
till  their  joint  exertion  has  accomplished  in  an  hour 
what  before  seemed  likely  to  remain  undone  forever. 
Such  is  our  condition,  even  after  we  are  taught,  both 
by  precept  and  example.  We  are  still  not  strong  to 
any  practical  effect,  until  we  are  constrained  to  move 
by  some  new  principle  of  action.  And  such  a  princi- 
ple is  actually'  set  at  work  in  everj  reiiuwed  heart. 
"The  love  of  Christ  constrainetU  us,"     If  love  be 


188  S3RM0NS. 

wanting,  all  is  lost ;  we  can  do  nothing  ;  we  are  prac- 
tically just  as  weak  as  ever.  But  let  the  love  of  God 
be  shed  abroad  in  our  hearts,  and  all  the  knowledge 
and  the  motives  wliich  had  long  lain  as  an  inert,  life- 
less mass,  begin  to  move,  and  in  the  right  direction. 
All  the  powers  and  affections  are  aroused,  and  at 
the  same  time  checked  and  regulated.  "What  seemed 
impossible,  is  now  felt  to  be  easy.  He  who  once 
could  do  nothing,  is  now  able  to  "  do  all  things." 
Brethren,  the  power  of  Christ  strengthens  us,  when 
the  love  of  Christ  constrains  us. 

Again  :  Christ  strengthens  us  by  working  faith  in 
us,  and  by  making  himself  known  to  us,  as  the  object 
of  that  faith.  In  this  life  the  most  favoured  have  to 
walk  by  faith,  and  not  by  sight.  Christ  is  to  all  of 
us  an  unseen  Saviour.  His  word,  and  his  example  are 
indeed  before  us.  But  the  reason  and  the  purpose  of 
his  requisitions  and  his  dealings  with  ns  may  be 
wholly  unaccountable.  We  admit  our  obligation  to 
obey  him,  and  to  follow  him  through  evil  and  through 
good  report.  But  when  our  minds  are.  filled  with 
doubt  and  wonder  as  to  the  reality,  or  meaning,  or 
intent  of  his  commands,  how  can  we  energetically  do 
them  ?  Such  a  state  of  mind  necessarily  produces 
weakness.  "We  delay,  we  vacillate,  we  stop  short, 
we  begin  afresh,  until  our  strength  and  patience  are 
expended.  And  as  we  cannot  hope  to  see  these  diffi- 
culties all  removed  at  present;  we  can  only  become 
strong  by  trusting,  by  confiding,  by  believing  what 
we  do  not  see,  by  looking  forward  to  what  is  not  yet 
revealed.  Now  "faith  is  the  substance  of  things 
hoped   for,  and  the   evidence  of  things  not  seen." 


\ 


PHILIPPIANS  4,  13.  189 

Faith  therefore  strengthens.  To  be  strong,  we  must 
believe,  confide,  and  trust.  The  reason  of  this  fact 
is  obvious.  If  we  wait  until  we  see  and  couiprehend 
the  solution  of  all  difficulties,  we  shall  never  begin  to 
act,  and  such  inaction  is,  of  course,  a  state  of  weak- 
ness. If  we  refuse  to  take  any  thing  for  granted,  or 
to  receive  any  thing  on  trust,  prompt  and  energetic 
action  is  impossible.  The  emergencies  requiring  it 
will  pass  away  before  we  have  put  ourselves  in  mo- 
tion. The  corrective  of  this  weakness  is  a  well-placed 
trust  in  something  out  of  ourselves.  A  blind  ca- 
pricious trust  is  worse  than  weakness ;  but  a  firm 
trust  in  something  or  some  person  that  deserves  it,  is 
a  source,  a  never-failing  source  of  strength. 

Xow  Christ  permits  us,  and  invites  us,  and  enables 
us  to  trust  in  him.  And  what  can  be  a  more  secure 
foundation  upon  which  to  build  ?  Ilis  abnighty  power, 
his  omniscience,  the  perfection  of  his  wisdom,  truth, 
and  goodness,  and  the  infinite  merit  of  his  saving  work, 
all  warrant  an  implicit  and  unwavering  trust.  lie- 
lying  upon  him,  we  may  dismiss  our  doubts  and  fears, 
collect  our  wandering  and  distracted  thoughts,  con- 
centrate all  our  energies  on  present  duties,  and  do 
wonders  of  obedience,  encouraged  by  the  testimony 
and  example  of  "  so  great  a  cloud  of  witnesses,"  "  who 
through  faith  subdued  kingdoms,  wrought  righteous- 
ness, obtained  promises,  stopped  the  mouths  of  lions, 
quenched  the  violence  of  fire,  escaped  the  edge  of  the 
sword,  out  of  xoeahness  were  made  strong^  M'axed  val- 
iant in  fight,  and  turned  to  flight  the  armies  of  the 
aliens."  Out  of  weakness  were  made  strong — ^j^recise- 
ly  what  we  want,  and  faith  accomplishes  it ;  faith  in 


190  SERMONS. 

Christ,  both  as  its  object  and  its  source ;  that  faith 
of  wliich  he  is  the  "  author  and  the  finisher."  Christ 
strengthens  us  by  ^vorking  in  us  faith. 

Once  more :  he  strengthens  us  by  iTnion  with 
hmself.  This  is  the  office  and  effect  of  faith.  "We 
trust  an  unseen,  not  an  absent  Saviour.  He  is  not 
afar  off,  but  at  hand.  We  should  seek  the  Lord,  if 
haply  we  might  feel  after  him,  and  find  him,  though 
he  be  not  far  from  every  one  of  us,  for  in  him  we  live, 
and  move,  and  have  our  being.  This  is  not  more  true 
of  the  natural  relation  we  sustain  to  God,  than  of  the 
spiritual  relation  we  sustain  to  Christ.  If  we  are  time 
believers,  it  is  in  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have 
our  spiritual  being.  He  is  indeed  not  far  from  every 
one  of  us.  Nor  are  we  merely  near  him.  We  are 
united  with  him.  We  are  ingrafted  on  him,  we  are 
inserted  in  him.  The  nature  of  the  union  thus  de- 
noted by  strong  figures  is  to  us  inscrutable.  We  only 
know  that  they  express  a  great  and  glorious  reality, 
of  which  we  can  judge  by  its  effects ;  and  its  effects 
are  such  as  these,  that  the  life  we  now  live  is  no 
longer  ours,  but  Christ's,  that  the  spiritual  strength 
we  now  exert  is,  in  the  same  sense.  His ;  that  hia 
strength  is  made  perfect  in  our  weakness ;  so  that 
when  we  are  weak  then  we  are  strong ;  and  instead 
of  desjjairing,  we  can  glory  in  infirmities.  This  new, 
transcendent,  real,  though  mysterious  strength,  is  the 
fruit  of  union  with  the  Saviour  ;  and  the  union  which 
produces  this  strength  is  itself  produced  by  faith.  In 
giving  faith  then,  Christ  gives  union,  and  in  giving 
union,  he  gives  strength.  ISTo  wonder  that  the  same 
Boul  which  desponded  when  cast  upon  its  own  re- 


PHILIPPIANS  4,  13.  191 

sources,  should  feel  strong  as  it  grows  conscious  of  its 
union,  its  identity  -witli  Christ.  In  itself  it  could  do 
nothing.  In  him  it  can  do  all  things.  This  is  the 
true  sense  of  Paul's  language.  I  can  do  all  things, 
not  merely  through^  but  in  Christ  enabling  me,  not 
merely  by  his  help,  but  by  spiritual  union  and  incor- 
poration with  him,  so  that  he  lives  in  me  and  I  live 
in  him.  Brethren,  Christ  strengthens  us  by  uniting 
us  to  himself. 

In  all  these  ways,  then,  by  instruction,  by  exam- 
ple, by  his  love  constraining  them,  by  faith  uniting 
them  to  himself,  the  Saviour  strengthens  true  believ- 
ers, even  the  weakest,  till  at  last  in  the  assurance  of 
this  strength  they  lose  the  sense  of  their  own  weak- 
ness altogether,  and  can  face  the  most  appalling  dan- 
gers, and  the  most  gigantic  difficulties,  saying,  I  can 
do,  not  merely  this  or  that,  but  all  things,  not  merely 
one  thing,  or  a  few  things,  or  many  things,  bat  all 
things,  in  Christ  enabling  me. 

Let  us  now  consider  more  particularly  what  is 
comprehended  in  the  general  expression  "  all  things." 
We  cannot  add  to  its  extent  of  meaning,  which  is 
already  universal  ;  but  we  may  give  additional  dis- 
tinctness to  our  own  conceptions,  by  observing  sepa- 
rately some  of  the  detached  particulars  summed  up 
in  the  collective  phrase,  "  all  things."  And  as  the 
very  strength  of  this  expression  makes  complete 
enumeration  impossible,  we  must  be  contented  to  dis- 
tinguish a  few  classes,  among  which  the  particulars 
may  be  distributed.  When  the  Apostle  or  the  humblest 
Christian,  in  the  triumph  of  his  faith,  exclaims,  "1 
can  do  all  things,"  he  means,  of  course,  all  that  is  re- 


192  SERMONS. 

quired  or  necessary.  lie  may,  therefore,  be  naturally 
understood  as  saying:  "I  can  do  all  duty."  Christ 
came  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil.  The  Christian  is 
no  longer  under  the  law  as  a  way  of  salvation,  but  he 
is  under  law  as  a  rule  of  duty.  The  Saviour  freed 
men  from  the  heavy  yoke  of  legal,  ceremonial  bondage, 
but  he  did  not  free  them  wholly  from  restraint.  For 
he  invites  them  to  take  his  yoke  upon  them,  and  as- 
sures them  that  his  yoke  is  easy  and  his  burden  light. 
The  believer  still  has  duties  to  perform,  and  the  re- 
mainder of  corruption  often  makes  them  hard  indeed. 
He  knows  not  how  to  go  about  them.  He  shrinks 
from  them.  He  would  gladly  evade  them,  or  per- 
suade himself  that  they  are  not  obligatory,  but  in 
vain.  As  soon  as  his  sophistical  reasoning  is  conclud- 
ed, he  reverts,  as  if  by  instinct,  to  his  old  conclusion. 
He  admits  the  obligation.  He  attempts  to  discharge 
it.  But  a  thousand  difficulties  spring  up  in  his  way, 
until  at  last,  despairing  of  escape,  he  manfully  resolves 
to  brave  them,  in  reliance  on  divine  grace.  And  no 
sooner  is  tliis  resolution  formed,  than  all  his  difiicul- 
ties  vanish.  He  beholds  with  astonishment  the  moun- 
tain levelled  to  a  plain.  He  is  ready  to  ascribe  the 
change  to  outward  causes,  but  he  soon  finds  that  the 
change  is  in  himself.  He  is  conscious  of  strength, 
but  not  his  own,  and  knowing  whence  it  comes,  he  is 
ready  to  cry  out,  in  the  presence  of  the  very  obsta- 
cles and  perils  which  before  unmanned  him  :  "  I  can 
do  all  things  through  Christ  which  stren^theneth  me." 
We  may  safelj^  appeal  to  the  experience  of  every 
Christian,  for  the  truth  of  the  assertion,  that  nothing 
so  efiectually  overcomes  the  hinderances  to  duty,  and 


PHIIJPPIAKS  4,  13.  103 

supplies  the  want  of  strength  for  its  performance,  as 
the  teaching  of  Christ  by  his  word  and  spirit — the 
inciting  influence  of  his  example — the  consciousness 
of  love  to  him  as  an  impelling  motive — the  active 
exercise  of  faith  in  him  as  the  foundation  of  our  hope 
— and,  above  all,  the  controlling  sense  of  oneness  with 
him — from  the  joint  operation  of  which  causes,  the 
most  fearful  and  infirm  of  his  true  followers,  who, 
abandoned  to  himself,  could  do  nothing,  absolutely 
nothing, "  can  do  all  tilings,"  in  the  way  of  duty. 

Taking  "  duty"  in  the  widest  sense  of  which  the 
word  admits,  what  has  now  been  said  may  be  con- 
sidered as  including  all  emergencies.  For  if  the 
Christian  can  do  all  he  ought  to  do,  nothing  more  can 
be  demanded  or  desired.  Thus  explained,  this  is  not 
so  much  a  special  case  to  which  the  text  applies,  as 
an  additional  description  of  all  cases.  But  if  we  take 
the  doing  of  duty  in  a  more  restricted  sense,  as  signi- 
fying active  compliance  Avith  a  positive  command, 
there  are  other  cases  left  to  which  the  doctrine  of  the 
text  may  be  applied.  For  they  whom  Christ  thus 
strengthens,  are  not  only  qualified  to  do  his  will  in 
the  specific  sense  just  mentioned,  i.  e.,  to  perform  the 
acts  which  he  requires,  as  pleasing  in  his  sight,  but 
also  to  resist  the  evil  influences  which  assail  them 
from  another  quarter.  The  believer  is  not  only  called 
to  the  performance  of  d  ity  ;  he  is  also  tempted  to 
the  commission  of  sin.  He  is  therefore  in  danger  of 
offending  God,  both  by  omission  and  by  positive 
transgression. 

This  two-fold  danger   is   enhanced   by   his   own 
weakness.     As  he  has  not  spiritual  strength  to  do 

VOL.  11. — 9 


194  SERMONS. 

^yhat  is  riglit,  20  he  lias  not  strength  to  resist  tr  avoid 
e^il.  This  arises  fi'om  the  nature  of  onr  fallen  state. 
That  state  is  not  one  of  mere  indifferonce  or  even  of 
repugnance  to  what  God  requires,  but  of  inclination 
and  attachment  to  what  God  forbids.  When  left  to 
onrselves,  therefore,  we  cannot  remain  in  equilibrio. 
The  scale  of  evil  instantly  predominates.  Our  native 
dispositions  and  affections  are  not  neutral,  but  en- 
listed on  the  wrong  side  of  the  controversy.  This  is 
the  case,  even  with  true  converts,  just  so  far  as  their 
corruption  is  permitted  to  control  their  conduct.  That 
control  is  no  longer,  and  can  never  again  become 
paramount,  much  less  exclusive.  But  it  may  con- 
tinue and  extend  so  far  as  to  make  resistance  to 
temptation  one  of  their  severest  trials — so  severe  that 
they  are  sometimes  ready  to  despair  of  being  able  to 
withstand.  And  yet,  if  such  be  truly  the  desire  ot 
their  hearts,  their  own  experience  sliall  effectually 
teach  them  that  what  is  impossible  with  man  is  possi- 
ble Avith  God.  The  same  voice  that  says  to  them  in 
tones  of  solemn  warning  :  "  Let  him  that  thinketh  he 
standeth  take  heed  lest  he  fall, "  (1  Cor.  10,  12,)  shall 
also  say  to  them  in  tones  of  merciful  encouragement: 
(1  Cor.  5.  13.)  "There  hath  no  temptation  taken  you 
but  such  as  is  common  to  man ;  and  God  is  faithful, 
who  will  not  suffer  you  to  be  tempted  above  that  ye 
are  able,  but  will,  with  the  temptation,  also  make  a 
way  of  escape,  that  ye  may  be  able  to  bear  it." 

Now  what  is  this  M'ay  (eVySao-t?)  of  escape  but  Christ 
himself,  and  how  shall  our  weakness  and  corruption 
become  able  to  endure  temptation,  but  through 
Christ  enabling  us  ?     Here  then  is  another  great  emer- 


PHILIPPIA^*S  4,  IS.  195 

gency  to  which  the  text  applies  ;  and  1  put  it  to  your- 
selves, Christian  brethren,  whether  you  have,  not  ex- 
perienced, in  some  degree,  the  efficacy  of  the  means 
which  God  has  thus  provided.  Is  there  no  well- 
remembered  juncture  in  your  history — in  that  of  some 
among  you  have  there  not  been  many — when  the  con- 
quest of  yourselves  and  the  defeat  of  your  spiritual 
foes  seemed  as  hopeless  as  the  conquest,  nay  as  the 
creation,  of  a  world ;  and  you  were  ready,  though  un- 
willing, to  succumb,  in  sheer  despair  of  a  successful 
resistance  ?  but  precisely  at  the  moment  when  this 
self-despair  had  reached  its  height,  it  was  transformed, 
as  by  a  miracle,  into  a  childlike  trust  in  Christ,  for 
which  it  seemed  to  be  the  necessary  preparation  ;  and 
before  that  new-born  strength,  the  force  of  your 
temptations  seemed  to  melt  and  vanish,  so  that,  as  you 
looked  with  a  serene  contempt  ujDon  what  a  little 
while  before  appeared  invincible,  you  could  say  as 
Paul  says,  and  as  every  true  believer,  in  his  turn  is 
called  to  say,  I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ 
enabling  me.  Yes,  through  him  you  can  do  even  that 
which  seems  most  hopeless ;  you  can  endure,  resist, 
subdue,  despise,  all,  all  temptation  ! 

In  the  two  cases  which  have  now  been  mentioned, 
we  have  seen  the  Christian  actively  performing  and 
resisting  through  the  power  of  Christ  enabling  him. 
But  there  is  still  a  third  case  which  must  not  be  over- 
looked ;  a  case  in  which  the  Christian  is  not  active  but 
passive.  He  is  not  called  merely  to  performance  and 
resistance,  but  to  patient  endurance.  This  is  in  some 
respects  more  trying  than  either  of  the  others.  Not 
merely  because  it  involves  the  painful  sense  of  sufler- 


igQ  SERMONS. 

ing,  but  because  it  contains  nothing  to  excite  and 
stimulate,  and  foster  pride.  To  obey  and  to  resist  are 
active  duties  which  require  an  energetic  exercise  of 
will.  But  to  endure,  to  suffer,  to  lie  still,  to  be  inca- 
pable of  action  or  resistance — this  is  to  many  a  severer 
test — it  is  to  all  hard,  hard  indeed.  "When  this  part 
of  God's  providential  discipline  begins  to  be  applied 
to  individual  believers,  they  are  sometimes  ready  to 
repine  and  quarrel  at  its  being  used  at  all  in  their 
case.  They  cannot  see  the  need  of  remedies  so  pain- 
ful, when  a  milder  treatment,  as  they  think,  would 
answer  every  needful  purpose.  At  length,  perhaps, 
they  are  convinced  of  their  error,  and  made  willing, 
by  painful  but  wholesome  experience,  to  believe 
that  the  evidence  of  God's  paternal  favour  towards 
them  would  have  been  less  clear  and  perfect  if  they 
had  not  been  thus  visited.  Their  minds  are  satisfied, 
at  least  as  to  this  kind  of  spiritual  discipline  being 
adapted  to  their  course.  But  still  they  may  be  ready 
to  find  fault  with  the  degree,  with  the  extent,  to  which 
the  process  is  continued.  Tliey  are  ready  to  say.  It 
is  good  that  I  have  been  afflicted,  but  they  cannot 
restrain  themselves  from  adding :  "  How  often  and 
how  long,  O  Lord  ?  forever  ? "  Yet  even  this  hard 
lesson  many  have  been  made  to  learn,  and  learn  it  so 
effectually,  that  they  may  be  said  to  have  become  ac- 
customed even  to  the  long  continuance  or  frequent 
repetition  of  some  providential  strokes,  as  peculiarly 
adapted  to  their  case,  and  jjerhaps  essential  to  their 
spiritual  safety. 

But  this  familiarity  with  certain  forms  of  suffering 
may  destroy  or  at  least  impair  its  medicinal  effect. 


I 


PHILIPPIANS  4,  13.  197 

and  when  the  Great  Physician  suddenly  changes  his 
accustomed  mode  of  treatment,  and  applies  some  un- 
tried, unexpected  remedy,  the  first  smart  of  the  now 
process  often  forces,  even  from  the  hearts  of  true  be- 
lievers, the  expostulating  question.  Why  this  new  inflic- 
tion ?  I  had  learned  to  bear  the  other  ;  I  had  almost 
ceased  to  feel  it ;  but  this  new  stroke  opens  all  my 
wounds  afresh,  and  reproduces  my  almost  forgotten 
agonies.  In  thus  saying,  or  thus  thinking,  how  un- 
consciously may  those  who  suffer  answer  their  own 
arguments,  and  vindicate  the  very  course  of  which 
they  venture  to  complain.  Tliey  little  think,  at  least 
in  the  first  moment  of  surprise,  that  this  new  form  of 
the  divine  dispensations  may  have  been  adopted  for 
the  very  reason  that  the  old  one  had  become  endur- 
able, and  therefore  inefiectual.  But  even  this  consid- 
eration, when  suggested  and  received,  is  not  enough 
to  give  the  necessary  power  of  endurance.  That  is 
still  afi'orded  only  by  the  presence  of  Christ,  and  the 
believer's  union  with  him.  It  is  only  when  that  union 
has  been  consciously  efiected  and  has  borne  its  neces- 
sary fruit,  that  the  afilicted  soul  can  say  with  full  as- 
surance of  its  sorest  trials,  however  frequent,  various, 
or  protracted,  as  it  said  before  of  duty  and  resistance 
to  temptation,  "  I  can  do  all  thhigs  through  Christ 
which  strengtheneth  me." 

If  this  view  of  the  strength  derived  by  Christians 
from  their  union  w  ith  the  Saviour  enabling  them  to 
act,  resist,  and  sufier,  even  in  the  most  extreme  emer- 
gencies, could  be  presented  clearly  to  the  mind,  the 
belief  of  those  who  are  still  strangers  to  him,  it  is  al- 
most inconceivable  that  they  should  fail  to  experience 


198  SERMONS. 

a  kind  of  envious  dissatisfaction.  Even  some  of  yon, 
my  hearers,  may  be  ready  to  exclaim,  All  things  are 
possible  to  the  believer,  but  to  me  belief  itself  is  the 
greatest  of  all  impossibilities.  If  I  repent  and  be- 
lieve, I  can  do  all  things,  but  I  cannot  comply  with 
the  condition,  and  I  cannot  therefore  lay  hold  of  the 
promise.  Yes,  yes,  you  can.  If  you  are  truly  will- 
ing, you  are  able ;  for  the  same  grace  that  enables, 
must  dispose.  If  you  arc  willing,  you  are  able,  not 
in  your  own  strength,  but  enabled  by  the  same  Christ 
who  enables  the  believer  to  do  all  the  rest.  The  first 
step  that  he  takes  in  his  journey  heavenward,  he  takes 
leaning  on  the  same  arm  that  supports  him  to  the 
end.  This  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  the  gospel,  hard 
to  explain  but  glorious  to  believe,  that  a  gracious  God 
bestows  what  he  requires,  and  gives  us  even  that 
without  which  he  gives  nothing.  If  you  would  really 
be  saved,  that  desire  is  as  much  his  work  as  the  sal- 
vation which  it  seeks,  and  he  who  wrought  it  in  you 
will  not  suffer  it  to  remain  unsatisfied.  Look  up 
then,  sinking  and  desponding  soul,  and  put  not  from 
you  the  last  hope,  and,  it  may  be,  the  last  opportunity 
of  safety.  Kepent,  believe !  These  are  among  the 
"  all  things "  which,  through  Christ  enabling,  even 
you  may  do,  and  having  done  them,  you  shall  then 
be  able  to  do  all  things  else,  until  at  last  looking 
back  upon  difficulties  conquered,  nay,  impossibilities 
achieved,  and  forward  to  the  course  yet  to  be  run,  in 
time  or  in  eternity,  your  farewell  shout  of  victory 
shall  still  be  the  same  as  the  first  faint,  feeble  cry  of 
your  new-born  hope,  "  I  can,  I  can  do  all  things, 
through  Christ  which  strengtheneth  me." 


i 


XI. 


Psalm  51,  7. — Purge  me  with  hyssop,  and  I  shall  be  ;Iean;  wash 
me,  and  I  shall  be  whiter  than  snow. 

There  is  no  surer  index  of  men's  real  dispositions 
and  desires  than  their  prayers;  not  their  forms  of 
prayer,  whether  written  or  unwi-itten,  whether  pre- 
scribed by  others  or  imposed  npon  themselves,  but  their 
real  prayers,  the  genuine  expression  of  their  own  de- 
sires, extorted  from  them  by  the  urgent  sense  of  want, 
or  danger,  or  distress  ;  such  prayers  as  are  sometimes 
offered  by  men  who  do  not  liabitually  pray  at  all ; 
nay,  such  as  even  the  blaspheming  atheist  has  been 
heard  to  pray  in  his  agony  of  terror,  when  a  storm  at 
sea,  or  a  dangerous  illness  has  not  only  convinced 
him  that  there  is  a  God,  but  forced  him  to  his  foot- 
stool as  a  suppliant  for  mercy.  Such  prayers  are 
prayed  perhaps  by  all  men  at  some  time  of  their  lives, 
and  may  therefore  be  appealed  to,  as  exemplifying 
what  is  meant  by  saying,  that  the  surest  index  to 
men's  real  dispositions  and  desires  is  that  furnished 
by  their  prayers. 

These  may  also  be  described  as  affording  the  most 
certain  test  of  men's  disagreement  or  agreement  with 


200  SERMONS. 

each  otlier.  as  to  tliat  which  constitutes  the  theme  or 
burden  of  tlie  praj^er.  Whoever  can  appropriate  the 
prayers  of  others,  as  the  genuine  expression  of  his 
own  desires,  must  desire  the  same  things.  However 
they  may  differ  as  to  other  matters,  here  they  must 
agree,  or  else  their  union  in  prayer  is  hypocritical. 
This  is  tn\e  of  all  prayer,  whether  heard  in  public,  or 
overheard  in  secret,  or  read  in  books.  So  far  as  that 
which  is  tlms  read  or  heard  is  found  to  express  the 
religious  feelings  or  desires  of  him  who  reads  or  hears 
it,  so  far  must  those  feelings  and  desires  be  coincident 
with  those  of  the  man  by  W'hom  the  prayer  was  of- 
fered. In  this  way  we  may  judge  of  the  agreement 
of  our  own  experience  with  that  of  others,  not  merely 
of  our  own  contemporaries,  but  of  those  long  since 
departed.  When  we  read  the  biographies  of  pious 
men,  and  find  there  the  petitions  in  which  they  ex- 
pressed the  fulness  of  their  hearts,  if  ours  respond  to 
them,  if  we  can  say  amen  to  them,  if  we  can  use  tliem 
to  express  our  own  desires,  then  we  may  safely  con- 
clude that  we  are  sharers,  so  far,  in  the  same  exj)e- 
rience  wdiicli  they  have  left  on  record. 

But  delightful  as  this  feeling  of  communion  with 
the  pious  dead  may  be,  it  is  attended  wdth  a  certain 
danger,  that  of  sharing  in  their  weaknesses  and  errors, 
as  well  as  in  their  pure  desires  and  heavenly  aspira- 
tions. This  hazard  must  exist  in  every  case  except 
where  inspiration  sets  its  seal,  not  only  on  the  truth 
of  the  record,  but  on  the  genuineness  of  the  exercises 
there  recorded.  It  was  not  the  special  inspiration  of 
the  •'  holy  men  of  old  "  that  produced  their  faith  and 
repentance ;  if  it  were,  we  could  not  hope  to  bo  par- 


PSALM  51,  7.  201 

takers  of  the  same,  unless  inspired  as  tliey  were.  But 
their  inspiration  does  assure  us,  in  the  first  place,  that 
cheir  faith  and  repentance  are  correctly  stated,  and  in 
the  next  place,  that  they  were  genuine  ;  so  that  if  we 
wish  to  bring  our  own  to  the  test  or  comparison  with 
theirs,  we  may  do  so  without  fear  of  risk  or  error. 
For  this  very  purpose  the  Bible  contains  many  such 
expressions  of  the  faith  and  repentance,  the  hope  and 
love,  exercised  by  ancient  saints,  to  serve  not  only  as 
examples  but  as  formulas,  in  which  to  clothe  our  own 
desires  and  emotions,  and  so  far  as  we  can  do  so  with 
sincerity,  we  have  a  right  to  claim  a  share  in  their 
experience.  This  is  one  main  design  of  the  book  of 
Psalms,  and  to  this  use  it  has  always  been  applied  by 
true  believers,  not  in  public  worship  and  instruction 
merely,  but  in  their  most  intimate  communings  with 
themselves  and  God.  And  if  there  is  any  one  psalm 
which  above  all  others  has  been  found  appropriate  to 
this  end,  it  is  surely  that  from  which  the  text  is  taken, 
and  in  which  the  broken-hearted  penitent  of  every  age 
has  found  expressions  suited  to  convey  his  otherwise 
unutterable  groanings.  If  ever  tliere  was  genuine 
conviction,  and  repentance,  and  reliance  upon  free 
grace,  it  was  in  the  case  of  David,  which  affords  us 
therefore  a  most  interesting  opportunity  of  bringing 
our  own  feelings  to  the  test  or  standard  which  has 
been  described.  And  as  the  psalm  abounds  in  varied 
yet  harmonious  exhibitions  of  the  same  essential  truth, 
let  us  fix  our  attention  on  the  one  prayer  recorded  in 
the  text,  and  consider  how  far  we  are  able  and  pre- 
pared to  appropriate  it  as  the  expression  of  our  own 
desires.     To  this  end  it  will  be  necessary  to  inquire 

VOL.  II. — 9* 


202  SERMONS. 

liow  miicli  is  involved  or  presupposed  in  the  petition. 
And  this  maj  prove  to  be  far  more  than  appears  at 
first  sight. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  no  one  can  sincerely  ofier 
this  petition  unless  conscious  of  pollution  and  defile- 
ment. This  is  necessarily  implied  in  the  very  tenns 
of  the  petition.  He  who  says  Cleanse  me,  says  by 
implication,  I  am  filthy.  But  this  is  a  confession 
from  which  pride  revolts.  IS'ot  even  all  who  are  in 
a  certain  sense  convinced  of  sin  are  willing  to  ac- 
knowledge this,  or  even  able  so  to  do  without  hypoc- 
risy. A  man  may  be  conscious  of  sin  as  a  negation, 
as  want  of  conformity  to  a  standard  which  he  recog- 
nizes as  the  true  one,  or  even  as  a  positive  violation 
of  a  rule  which  he  admits  to  be  obligatory  ;  not  only 
intrinsically  right,  but  binding  on  himself;  and  yet 
he  may  recoil  from  the  acknowledgment  of  sin  as  a 
pollution  of  defilement ;  something  which  makes  him 
an  object  of  loathing  and  abhorrence  to  all  holy  be- 
ings, and  even  to  himself  so  far  as  he  is  really  en- 
lightened in  the  knowledge  of  God's  nature  and  his 
own.  Yet  this  profound  and  painful  self-contempt  is 
an  essential  part  of  true  rej)entance,  because  it  is  a 
necessary  consequence  of  just  views  as  to  sin  and  holi- 
ness. And  even  if  not  necessary  to  salvation,  it 
would  be  necessary  to  an  earnest  and  sincere  appro- 
priation of  these  words  of  David  as  the  expression  of 
our  own  desires.  For  even  common  sense  may  teach 
us,  that  unless  a  man  is  conscious  of  defilement  and 
anclcanness,  he  cannot  with  sincerity  ask  God  to 
';]eo,]-i.so  him. 

But  there  is  still  another  thing  implied  in  tliis  re- 


PSALM  51,  7.  203 

quest,  or  rather  expressed  bj  it ;  consent  and  -willing- 
ness, nay  an  importunate  desire  to  be  puriiied.  Tliis 
is  by  no  means  identical  with  what  has  been  already 
said,  nor  even  necessarily  included  in  it,  Tlie  sense 
of  pollution  is  perfectly  distinguishable  from  the  wish 
to  be  delivered  from  it.  True,  when  the  sense  of  pol- 
lution is  a  product  of  divine  grace,  it  is  always  ac- 
companied or  followed  in  experience  by  the  desire  of 
purification.  ^Nor  has  any  one  a  right  to  plead  or  to 
profess  his  consciousness  of  defilement,  unless  corrob- 
orated by  such  a  desire.  But  for  that  very  reason, 
it  is  highly  important  to  look  at  this  desire  as  a  dis- 
tinct prerequisite  or  element  of  true  repentance.  And 
another  reason  for  so  doing  is,  that  in  the  experience 
of  the  unregenerate  a  painful  sense  of  degradation 
and  defilement  may  and  often  does  coexist  with  a 
prevailing  wish  to  continue  in  it.  Why?  because  the 
man  loves  the  very  thing  which  he  acknowledges  and 
really  feels  to  be  debasing.  What  his  better  judg- 
ment, and  his  conscience  partially  enlightened  tell 
him  is  disgraceful,  his  vitiated  appetite,  his  perverted 
aflfections,  cleave  to  and  delight  in.  The  drunkard 
and  the  libertine,  and  other  classes  of  notorious  sin- 
ners, have  frequently  an  overwhelming  sense  of  their 
own  baseness,  a  distressing  consciousness  that  they 
have  sunk  themselves  below  the  level  of  their  kind, 
and  almost  to  the  level  of  the  brutes  that  perish. 
And  this  not  only  in  their  lucid  intervals  of  abstinence 
and  partial  reformation,  but  often  in  the  very  parox- 
ysm of  indulgence,  the  unhappy  victim  of  his  own 
corruption  feels  himself  to  be  an  object  of  abhorrence 
and  contempt  to  all  around  him,  and  in  propoition  to 


204:  SERMONS. 

the  light  which  he  enjoys  and  the  restraints  which  he 
has  broken  through,  may  even  be  said  to  despise 
himself. 

But  this  consciousness  of  degradation,  however 
real  and  however  strong,  is  never  sufficient  of  itself 
to  overcome  the  evil  dispositions  which  occasion  it. 
It  is  not  enough  for  man  to  know  that  sin  degrades 
him,  if  he  still  so  loves  it  as  to  be  willing  to  submit 
to  degradation  for  the  sake  of  its  indulgence.  Nor 
will  a  mere  sense  of  pollution  ever  drive  a  man  to 
God  for  cleansing,  if  his  affections  are  so  utterly  de- 
praved, that  his  polluted  state  is  one  of  pleasure  and 
enjoyment  to  him,  not  for  its  own  sake,  not  considered 
as  defilement,  but  as  an  indispensable  condition  of 
those  sinful  joys  which  constitute  his  iiappiness.  lie 
does  not  deliberately  choose  to  be  polluted  and  de- 
based, for  this  is  inconsistent  with  the  consciousness 
of  degradation  which  we  are  supposing  to  exist.  But 
he  does  choose  to  endure  the  degradation  which  he  can- 
not hide  even  from  himself,  for  the  sake  of  the  enjoy- 
ments which  degrade  him.  Now  with  this  unbroken 
love  to  evil,  no  sense  of  pollution  can  enable  him  to 
offer  the  petition  of  the  text ;  for  he  who  says  with  sin- 
cerity. Cleanse  me,  says  not  only,  I  am  filthy,  but  I 
consent,  I  desire  to  be  cleansed. 

But  suppose  this  desire  to  be  felt.  Suppose  the 
sinner  to  be  not  only  conscious  of  defilement  but  de- 
sirous of  2)urification.  And  suppose,  at  the  same  time, 
that  he  considers  himself  perfectly  able  to  produce  it 
or  secure  it  by  an  act  of  his  own  will,  or  by  a  series 
of  such  acts,  or  by  the  use  of  means  invented  by  him- 
self.    Will  such  a  man,  can  such  a  man  seek  purifica- 


1 


PbALM  51,  '.  205 

Hon  at  the  hands  of  another?  Is  it  not  a  dictate  of 
reason  and  experience,  that  what  men  can  do  for 
Jiemselves  they  will  not  solicit  others  to  do  for  them? 
True,  there  are  exceptions,  but  only  such  exceptions 
as  confirm  the  rule.  Some  are  so  indolent,  or  proud, 
or  helpless,  that  they  gladly  devolve  upon  others  what 
they  should  do  for  themselves  :  but  the  public  voice 
condemns  their  sloth,  and  in  so  doing  bears  witness 
to  the  general  fjict,  that  what  men  are  conscious  of 
ability  to  do  themselves,  they  do  not  invite  others  to 
do  for  them.  The  same  thing  equally  holds  good  in 
spiritual  matters.  No  man  comes  to  God  for  cleans- 
ing who  believes  that  he  can  cleanse  himself.  It 
matters  not  how  deep  his  sense  of  degradation  and 
corruption  ;  no,  nor  how  desirous  to  be  purified  he 
seems,  if  he  believes  that  he  can  do  the  necessary 
work  himself,  he  will  not,  cannot,  join  in  this  petition. 
He  may  try  a  thousand  other  methods ;  he  may  mor- 
tify his  appetites  and  macerate  his  flesh  ;  he  may  go 
on  a  pilgrimage  and  cross  the  seas;  he  may  give  all 
his  goods  to  feed  the  poor ;  he  may  give  the  fruit  of 
his  body  for  the  sin  of  his  soul ;  he  may  give  his  very 
body  to  be  burned  ;  but  so  long  as  he  believes  in  his 
capacity,  by  these  or  any  other  means,  to  cleanse 
himself,  he  cannot  pray  the  prayer  of  David  in  the 
text;  for  he  who  with  sincerity  says  "Cleanse  me," 
says  by  that  very  act,  "  I  cannot  cleanse  myself." 

But  here,  as  elsewhere,  Satan  has  an  opposite  ex- 
treme for  men  to  rush  to.  The  extreme  of  impious 
presumption  often  leads  directly  to  that  of  unbelieving 
despondency.  From  the  absurd  belief  that  man 
can  do  every  thing,  they  leap  to  the  absurd  belief  that 


206  SERMONS. 

God  can  do  nothing.  Once  convinced  that  he  cannot 
cleanse  himself,  the  sinner  is  in  danger  of  concluiing 
that  purification  is  impossible.  And  in  this  desperate 
belief,  some  go  on  in  their  sins,  not  that  grace  may 
abound,  but  because  grace  is  believed  to  be  forever  un- 
attainable. ISTow  if  there  is  any  thing  which  may  be 
reckoned  a  certain  dictate  of  reason  and  experience, 
it  is  that  men  will  never  seriously  ask  that  to  be  done 
whicli  they  believe  to  be  impossible,  or  ask  another 
to  do  that  of  which  they  know  him  to  be  utterly  in- 
capable. How  can  a  man  then  ask  God  to  cleanse 
him,  if  he  despairs  of  being  cleansed,  as  something 
utterly  impossible.  Or  what  will  it  avail  that  he  be- 
lieves himself  polluted,  and  is  willing  to  be  purified, 
and  knows  himself  to  be  incapable  of  doing  it,  if  at 
the  same  time  he  believes  it  to  be  equally  beyond  the 
power  of  the  Almighty?  No,  whoever  earnestly  and 
sincerely  says  to  his  Maker,  "  Cleanse  me,"  says  im- 
plicitly as  the  leper  in  the  gospel  said  expressly,  "  If 
thou  wilt  thou  canst." 

Nay,  this  belief  in  God's  ability  to  do  what  we 
demand  of  him,  is  not  merely  implied  but  expressed 
in  the  petition  of  the  text :  "  Purge  me  with  hyssop, 
and  I  shall  he  clean  /  wash  me,  and  /  shall  he  whiter 
than  snow."  This  is  equivalent  to  saying,  "if  thou 
purge  me,  I  shall  certainly  be  clean  ;  if  thou  wash  me, 
I  shall  certainly  be  whiter  than  snow."  But  the  words 
thus  added  have  another  meaning,  or  rather  another 
application,  which  is  not  to  be  neglected.  They  are 
also  equivalent  to  saying,  "  Purge  me  with  hyssop, 
that  I  may  he  clean ;  wash  me,  that  I  may  he  whiter 
than  snow."     Thus  understood,  they  give  the  reason 


i 


PSALM  51,  7.  207 

why,  the  end  for  which,  the  royal  penitent  desires 
to  be  cleansed.  But,  cleanse  me  that  I  may  be 
cleansed,  would  be  a  mere  tautology,  unless  we  give 
the  latter  words  a  pregnant  and  emphatic  meaning — 
"  that  I  may  be  cleansed  " — i.  e.  that  I  may  be  entirely, 
thoroughly,  completely  cleansed.  And  that  this  is 
really  the  meaning,  is  apparent  from  the  words  ex- 
pressly added  in  the  other  clause — "  wash  me,  that  I 
may  be  wdiiter  than  snow."  Snow,  wherever  it  is 
known,  is  the  natural  and  customary  standard  of 
this  quality.  "  As  white  as  snow,''  suggests  to  every 
mind  the  idea  of  unsullied  whiteness,  without  any 
tinffe  or  shade  of  darker  colour.  "  Whiter  than  snow," 
is  a  hyperbole,  denoting,  in  a  still  stronger  nuinner, 
absolute  or  perfect  whiteness,  perhaps  with  an  allu- 
sion to  the  purity  here  spoken  of  as  something  super- 
natural, both  in  its  origin  and  its  degree.  If  the  most 
spotless  and  uusnllied  whiteness  known  to  nature  is 
the  whiteness  of  snow,  the  expression  "  Mhiter  than 
snow"  is  well  adapted  to  suggest  the  idea  of  a  white- 
ness, to  which  nature  furnishes  no  parallel,  and  of 
W'hich  she  can  furnish  no  example.  This,  when  ap- 
plied to  moral  and  spiritual  qualities,  must  signif}'  a 
perfect  purity  and  entire  freedom  from  moral  taint 
and  even  imperfection.  And  the  prayer,  "  wash  me, 
that  I  may  be  whiter  than  snow,"  expresses  a  willing- 
ness, or  rather  a  desire,  not  only  to  be  cleansed,  but 
to  be  fully  and  entirely  cleansed.  And  nothing  less 
than  this  desire  can  be  sufHcient  on  the  part  of  one 
who  claims  to  be  a  sharer  in  the  faith  and  penitence 
of  David,  and  in  proof  of  that  participation  echoes 
liis  petition,  "  Purge  me  with  hyssop,  and  I  shall  be 


208  SERMONS. 

clean  ;  wash  me,  and  I  shall  be  winter  than  snow." 
Whoever  makes  this  prayer  his  twn,  is  to  be  under- 
stood as  saying,  "  I  desire  to  be  cleansed  from  all  pol- 
lution," 

This  may,  at  first  sight,  seem  to  be  the  same  thing 
that  was  stated  as  the  second  particular.  But  near 
as  the  two  things  are  in  theory,  in  practice  and  ex- 
perience they  differ  widely,  A  man  may  be  willing 
to  be  cleansed,  and  yet  not  anxious  to  be  cleansed 
completely  ;  he  may  consent  to  be  "  white,"  yet  not 
aspire  to  be  "  whiter  than  snow."  In  other  words,  he 
may  be  satisfied  with  partial  or  external  renovation. 
He  may  wish  to  see  some  stains  washed  out  and 
others  left  untouched  ;  or  he  may  earnestly  desire  to 
have  the  outward  surface  cleansed  from  its  pollution, 
while  the  iimer  part  is  full  of  all  uncleanness.  He 
may  not  even  be  aware  of  the  extent,  the  depth,  of 
his  corruption.  He  may  be  disposed  to  look  upon  it 
as  a  superficial  or  cutaneous  aifection,  and  to  wish  for 
tlie  removal  of  its  unsightly  and  disgusting  symptoms 
in  which  it  manifests  itself,  not  aware  that  these  are 
but  the  outward  symptoms  of  a  deep-seated  malady 
within  ;  and  that,  unless  this  be  reached  by  remedies, 
the  disappearance  of  the  symptoms  could  be  only  tem- 
porary, and  might  aggravate  the  malady  itself.  It  is 
not  until  the  minds  of  men  are  thoroughly  awakened 
and  enlightened  in  relation  to  the  turpitude  of  sin, 
and  of  their  own  sin,  as  it  is  in  itself  and  as  it  is  in 
them,  and  filled  with  a  desire  to  be  saved  from  it  as 
well  as  from  the  punishment  which  it  incurs ;  it  is 
not  till  tlien  that  they  are  fully  able  to  adopt  the 
prayer  of  David,  as  a  prayer,  not  for  partial  but  com- 


PSALM  51,  7.  209 

plete  purification  ;  and  to  understand  that  he  who  saj^s 
"  cleanse  me,"  asks,  not  only  to  be  white,  but  also  to 
be  "  whiter  than  snoAV." 

To  this  desire  of  perfect  purity,  however,  even  the 
lieathen  may  attain,  and  some  of  their  philosophers 
have  actually  made  it  the  great  theme  of  their  moral 
speculations.  But  their  efforts  have  been  no  less  vain 
than  tiiose  of  many  Christian  errorists,  to  solve  the 
mighty  problem  of  human  restoration  by  every  means 
but  that  of  God's  appointment.  Even  those  who  pro- 
fess to  rely,  and  do  rely,  on  God  as  the  sole  efficient 
cause  of  tliis  momentous  revolution,  may  expect  to 
see  it  brought  about  by  moral  suasion,  or  by  mere 
instruction,  or  by  good  example,  or  by  ceremonial 
forms,  or  by  meritorious  abstinence  or  penance,  or  by 
mere  connection  with  the  Cliurch,  or  mere  enjoyment 
of  its  privileges,  or  by  mere  intellectual  reception  of 
the  truth,  or  by  any  other  means  distinct  from  Jesus 
Christ  and  his  atoning  sacrifice,  or  independent  of  it. 

And  yet  this  is  the  very  way,  the  only  way,  in 
which  the  sinful  soul  of  man  can  possibly  be  cleansed 
from  the  guilt  or  the  pollution  of  its  sins,  the  ordy 
way  in  wdiicli  it  can  either  be  justified  or  sancti- 
fied. And  therefore  this  must  enter  into  men's  de- 
sires of  renovation  as  a  necessary  element,  or  they  can 
never  pray  the  prayer  of  David  in  its  true  sense  and 
its  genuine  spirit ;  no,  nor  even  in  the  plain  sense  of 
its  actual  expressions.  For  he  does  not  simply  say, 
"  Purge  me,"  but  specifically,  "  purge  me  Avith  hys- 
sop," an  expression  borrowed  from  the  purifying  cer- 
emonies of  the  law,  by  which  the  fact  of  human 
depravity,  and  the  necessity  of  moral  renovation  were 


210  SERMONS. 

continually  kept  before  tlie  minds  of  the  people,  in 
connection  with  the  doctrine  of  atonement  bj  the 
sacrifice  of  life  for  life.  This  connection  was  inti- 
mated and  enforced,  not  only  by  the  constant  com- 
bination of  these  purifying  rites  with  those  of  sacrifice, 
but  also  by  the  actual  affusion  or  aspersion  of  pure 
water,  as  the  natural  and  universal  symbol  of  purifica- 
tion in  general,  and  of  the  sacrificial  blood  as  the 
symbol  of  purification  from  the  guilt  and  stain  of  sin 
by  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  in  particular.  Among 
the  substances  combined  with  the  water  and  the  blood 
in  these  symbolical  purifications  was  the  plant  called 
hyssop,  which  was  also  used  as  a  mechanical  instru- 
ment of  sprinkling,  and  was  thus  connected  in  a  two- 
fold manner  with  the  purifying  rites  of  the  Mosaic 
ritual,  so  that  its  very  name  would  call  up,  in  the 
mind  of  every  Hebrew  reader,  the  idea  of  purification 
by  atoning  blood,  and  in  the  mind  of  those  especially 
enlightened,  the  idea  of  that  promised  Saviour,  by 
w^iose  blood  alone  this  moral  renovation  could  be  ren- 
dered even  possible. 

To  all  then  that  has  been  already  mentioned  as 
essential  to  an  intelligent  and  full  participation  in  this 
prayer  of  David,  and  in  the  penitence  and  faith  of 
which  it  is  the  genuine  expression,  we  must  now  add 
that  all  is  unavailing,  because  either  spurious  or 
defective,  without  a  hearty  willingness,  not  only  to 
be  cleansed,  and  to  be  cleansed  by  God,  but  to  be 
cleansed  in  God's  own  way ;  not  only  to  be  "  purged," 
but  to  be  "  purged  with  hyssop,"  "  not  by  water  only, 
but  by  water  and  by  blood,"  and  through  him  who 
"  came  both  by  water   and  by  blood,  even  Jesus 


PSALM  51,  7.  211 

\  hrist ; "  for  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  his  Son, 
clecanseth  from  all  sm. 

If  then,  my  hearer,  you  are  still  unconscious  of 
your  guilt  and  danger  as  a  sinner  before  God  ;  or  if 
you  are  convinced  of  sin  only  as  a  failure  to  come  up 
to  the  standard  of  God's  law,  or  at  most  as  a  positive 
transgression  of  that  law,  but  not  as  a  pollution  and  a 
degradation,  loathsome  in  itself,  and  making  you  an 
object  of  abhorrence  to  all  sinless  intelligences  ;  or  if 
you  are  in  some  degree  aware  of  your  debasement,  but 
yet  willing  to  continue  in  it  for  the  sake  of  the  enjoy- 
ments which  it  now  aflfords  you ;  or  if,  though  willing 
and  desirous  to  be  cleansed  from  this  pollution,  you 
are  trusting  in  your  own  strength  to  effect  it ;  or  be- 
cause you  cannot  do  it,  are  unwilling  to  believe  that 
even  the  Almighty  can  ;  or  if  you  are  willing  and  de- 
sirous to  be  only  cleansed  in  part,  and  shrink  from 
the  idea  of  complete  purgation  as  too  humbling  or  too 
self-denying  ;  or  if  you  are  even  willing  to  submit  to 
this  revolutionizing  process,  but  unwilling  to  resort  to 
Jesus  Christ  as  your  purifier,  and  to  his  blood  as  the 
only  purifying  element ;  on  any  of  these  suppositions, 
and  alas  how  many  individual  cases  do  they  compre- 
hend, whatever  else  you  may  do  with  effect,  whatever 
else  you  may  say  with  sincerity,  I  tell  you  there  is 
one  thing  which  you  cannot  so  do  or  so  say,  you  can- 
not join  sincerely  in  this  prayer  of  David — "  Purge 
me  with  hyssop,  and  I  shall  be  clean  ;  wash  me,  and  I 
shall  be  whiter  than  snow."  To  yourself  such  a 
prayer  is  but  an  empty  and  unprofitable  form  ;  while 
to  God  whom  you  invoke,  it  is  a  mockery  and  insult. 

But  if,  through  God's  grace,  your  experience  is  the 


212  SERMONS. 

opposite  of  all  tliis,  if  yon  do  indeed  feel  yourself  to 
be  a  sinner  ;  if  you  feel  your  sin  not  only  as  a  burden 
and  a  debt,  but  as  a  stain  and  a  pollution  ;  if  you  are 
willing  to  forego  the  pleasures  of  sin  for  the  purpose 
of  escaping  from  this  deadly  degradation  ;  if  you  are 
thoroughly  convinced  that  you  cannot  cleanse  your- 
self, and  yet  that  God  can  cleanse  you  ;  if  you  can 
heartily  consent  to  be  cleansed  by  him,  not  super- 
ficially or  partially,  but  thoroughly  and  perfectly — not 
in  the  way  of  your  own  choosing  or  of  man's  devising, 
but  of  God's  providing — then  my  prayer  is,  that  God 
may  deal  with  you  this  moment  as  he  dealt  of  old 
with  Hagar  in  the  wilderness  of  Beersheba,  when  he 
"  ojDened  her  eyes,  and  she  saw  a  well  of  water ;  "  but 
in  this  case,  not  by  water  only,  but  by  w^ater  and  by 
blood,  for  ye  are  come,  perhaps  without  suspecting 
it,  "  to  Jesus  the  Mediator  of  the  new  covenant,  and 
to  the  blood  of  sprinkling,  a  blood  that  speaketh  bet- 
ter things  than  that  of  Abel."  "  See  that  ye  refuse 
not  Him  that  speaketh ;  for  if  they  escaped  not  who 
refused  him  that  spake  on  earth,  much  more  shall  not 
we  escape  if  we  turn  away  from  him  that  speaketh 
from  heaven.  For  (out  of  Christ)  our  God  is  a  con- 
suming fire." 


xn. 

Luke  13,  3.  (and  5.) — Except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  pemh 

These  are  among  the  most  familiar  words  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  among  those  most  frequently  employed  to 
rouse  the  consciences  of  the  impenitent.  They  are 
so  full  of  meaning,  that  even  the  most  commonplace 
and  superficial  exposition  of  the  sentence  must  convey 
enough  to  fill  the  mind  and  agitate  the  heart  of  one 
who  has  been  really  awakened.  There  is,  however, 
a  peculiar  point  and  pregnancy  of  imjjort  in  the 
words,  which  may  be  wholly  overlooked  in  making 
them  a  simple  basis  for  the  general  affirmation  that 
All  sinners  must  repent  or  per'ish.  This,  true  and 
awful  as  it  is,  is  rather  presupposed  than  positively 
stated.  To  confine  ourselves  to  this,  as  the  whole 
meaning,  is  to  lose  sight  of  two  emphatic  words  in 
the  short  sentence;  "ye"  and  "likewise."  Assum- 
ing, as  a  truth  already  known,  that  all  men  must  re- 
pent or  perish,  the  text  affirms  that  they  whom  it 
addresses  must  repent,  or  perish  likewise,  i.  c,  like 
those  particularly  mentioned  in  the  context.  Another 
feature  of  the  passage  which  is  apt  to  be  neglected  is, 
that  it  not  only  teaches  the  necessity  of  repentance  to 


214:  SERMONS. 

salvation,  but  presents  a  specific  motive  for  its  ex- 
ercise, or  ratlier  teaches  us  to  seek  occasions  of  re- 
pentance in  a  quarter  where  most  of  us  are  naturally 
least  disposed  to  seek  them ;  nay,  where  most  of  us 
are  naturally  and  habitually  prone  to  find  excuses  for 
indulffino;  sentiments  as  far  removed  from  those  of 
penitence  as  possible ;  uncharitable  rigour  and  cen- 
sorious pride. 

The  only  way  to  get  a  full  view  of  this-  deep  and 
varied  import,  is  by  looking  at  the  text  in  its  connec- 
tion, which  may  serve  at  the  same  time,  as  a  single 
but  remarkable  example,  to  illustrate  the  importance 
of  deriving  our  instructions  from  the  Scripture  in  its 
integrity  and  continuity,  and  not  from  certain  salient 
points,  which  frequent  handling  has  made  sharp  and 
bright,  but  at  the  same  time  often  put  into  a  false 
position  with  respect  to  that  by  which  they  are  con- 
nected, and  without  which  they  cannot  be  duly  ap- 
preciated or  even  correctly  understood. 

During  our  Lord's  last  journey  to  Jerusalem,  of 
which  this  part  of  Luke  contains  a  full  and  deepl}^  in- 
terestins:  narrative,  his  mind  seems  to  have  been  filled 
with  sad  forebodings  of  the  fearful  doom  impending 
over  Israel.  After  warning  his  disciples  and  exhort- 
ing them  to  watchfulness,  by  various  striking  parables 
and  figurative  illustrations,  he  turned,  on  one  occasion, 
to  the  multitude  who  were  present,  and,  addressing 
them  as  representatives  of  the  nation  at  large,  up- 
braided their  stupidity  and  insensibility,  in  so  saga- 
ciously anticipating  changes  of  the  weather  by  indi- 
cations gathered  from  experience,  while  even  the  most 
solemn  premonitions  of  approaching  moral  changes 


LUKE  13,  3.  215 

and  catastroplies  escaped  their  notice.  "  Wlien  ye 
8ee  a  cloud  rise  out  of  the  west,"  i.  <?.,  from  the  Med- 
iterranean Sea,  "  straightway  ye  say,  there  conieth  a 
shower,"  or  rather  a  storm  of  rain,  "  and  so  it  is,"  for 
these  were  not  mere  random  gnesses  or  fanciful  prog- 
nostications, but  the  fruit  of  long-continued  and  re- 
peated observation,  "  And  when  ye  see  the  south 
wind  blow,"  from  the  direction  of  the  great  Arabian 
wilderness,  "  ye  say,  there  will  be  heat,  and  it  cometh 
to  pass."  The  same  observant  and  sagacious  faculties, 
applied  to  things  of  infinitely  greater  moment,  might 
have  convinced  them  that  there  were  storms  and  heats 
at  hand,  of  which  they  were  at  present  wholly  unsus- 
picious. This  absorption  in  mere  outward  interests 
and  changes,  to  the  neglect  of  inward  spiritual  things, 
is  the  hypocrisy  with  which  our  Saviour  here  re- 
proaches them.  "  Ye  hypocrites,  ye  can  discern  the 
face  of  the  sky  and  of  the  earth ;  but  how  is  it  that 
ye  do  not  discern  the  signs  of  this  time  ?  "  the  prog- 
nostics of  momentous  revolution,  with  which  that 
most  eventful  period  of  history  was  crowded. 

Without  reckoning  any  thing  purely  preternatural 
which  we  find  recorded  by  contemporary  writers,  that 
solemn  interval,  extending  from  the  advent  to  the 
downfall  of  Jerusalem,  was  full  of  strange  occurrences, 
all  showing  that  Jehovah  had,  according  to  his  proph- 
ecy, begun  to  shake  the  nations.  Yet  of  these  ex- 
citing and  alarming  symptoms,  the  contemporaries 
of  our  Saviour  took  so  little  note,  that  it  was  only  by 
e;cplicit,  or  at  least  by  solemn  warning  that  he  could 
bring  these  fearful  futurities  before  their  minds.  No 
wonder  that,  impatient  of  this  strange  judicial  blind- 


216  SERMONS. 

ness,  lie  exclaimed,  "  "Wliy  even  of  yourselves  judge 
ye  not  what  is  right."  Will  you  apprehend  no  evil, 
unless  I  predict  it  in  so  many  words  ?  This  he  would 
not  do,  but  he  apprised  them  indirectly  of  their 
danger,  by  comparing  their  condition  to  that  of  on 
against  whom  his  neighbour  has  a  righteous  quarrel, 
and  who  is  just  about  to  be  arraigned  before  the  judg- 
ment seat,  without  any  prospect  but  of  condemnation, 
and  whose  only  hope  is  therefore  in  a  speedy  compro- 
mise and  reconciliation,  in  default  of  which  the  law 
must  have  its  course,  until  the  last  farthing  of  the 
debt  is  paid. 

This  illustration,  drawn  from  an  incident  of  real 
life,  which  comes  home,  with  peculiar  force,  to  the 
business  and  bosoms  of  the  mass  of  men  in  every 
civilized  community,  appears  to  have  produced  at 
least  so  much  effect  upon  the  feelings  of  some  hearers 
as  to  turn  their  thoughts  towards  strange  and  startling 
casualties,  as  tokens  of  divine  displeasure,  not  without 
a  secret  wish  to  understand  and  represent  them  as  de- 
noting that  displeasure,  towards  the  few  and  not 
the  many,  towards  their  neighbours,  not  themselves. 
AVitli  some  such  feeling,  certain  persons  present  in  the 
multitude  related  to  our  Saviour  a  revolting  incident, 
of  which  they  had  probably  just  heard,  a  massacre  of 
Galileans  by  the  cowardly  but  sanguinary  Eoman 
procurator,  Pontius  Pilate,  at  the  very  altar,  so  that 
their  blood  might  be  said  to  have  been  "mingled 
with  their  sacrifices."  Tliat  God  should  have  aban- 
doned them  to  heathen  cruelty  in  that  most  sacred  of 
asylums  where,  if  anywhere,  they  might  have  hoped 
for  his  protection,  did  indeed  look  like  a  teri'ible  ju- 


LUKE  13,  3.  217 

dicial  visitation,  and  it  may  naturally  be  supposed 
that  tliey  wlio  told  and  they  who  heard  it,  while  they 
shuddered  at  the  sacrilegious  murder,  were  disposed 
to  say  within  themselves,  "  Yet  surely  they  must  have 
been  atrocious  sinners,  to  be  given  up  to  such  a 
fate ! " 

Among  the  hearers  there  was  one,  however,  who 
felt  no  sympathy  with  this  self-righteous  and  unchari- 
table judgment;  whose  mind  was  free  from  all  con- 
fusion, and  his  feelings  from  all  bias  ;  who  saw  at 
once  the  truth  of  the  whole  case,  and  its  secret  effect 
upon  the  minds  of  those  around  him  ;  and  who  hast- 
ened, with  his  usual  benevolent  severity,  to  check 
the  fermentation  of  insidious  error,  and  to  turn  the 
thoughts  of  those  who  had  embraced  it  in  upon  them- 
selves. Instead  of  chiming  in  with  what  appeared  to 
be  a  pious  recognition  of  God's  justice  in  the  punish- 
ment of  sinners,  our  Saviour  tears  with  a  relentless 
hand  the  mask  from  the  secret  workings  of  his  hearers' 
hearts,  and  forces  them  at  once  upon  their  own  re- 
luctant sight  by  what  seems  to  be  a  simple  and  un- 
studied answer,  but  in  whose  simplicity  there  was  a 
sting  for  many  a  hitherto  invulnerable  conscience. 
"  Suppose  ye  that  these  Galileans  were  sinners  above 
all  the  Galileans,  because  they  suffered  these  things  ?  " 
It  was  no  doubt  to  his  Galilean  hearers  that  he 
especially  addressed  himself.  It  was  no  doubt  from 
them  that  this  report  of  Pilate's  conduct  to  their 
countrymen  proceeded.  Ilencc  the  peculiar  force  of 
our  Lord's  answer  to  his  own  searching  question  :  "  I 
tell  you  nay,  but  except  ye  repent,  ye  sliall  all  like- 
wise perish." 

VOL.  II. — 10 


218  SERMONS. 

N'ot  contented  witli  this  startling  contradiction  of 
their  secret  thoughts,  he  cites  another  case  himself, 
also  perhaps  of  recent  date,  and  vastly  stronger  in 
appearance  as  a  ground  for  the  opinion  "\vhich  he 
meant  to  demolish,  because  one  in  which  the  hand  of 
God  himself  was  visible  directly,  without  any  inter- 
vention of  a  wicked  human  instrument,  or  any  con- 
sequent confusion  of  this  agent's  sin  with  God's  most 
righteous  retributions  ;  a  case  in  which  a  number  of 
lives  had  been  lost  by  a  sudden  providential  casualty  : 
"  Or  those  eighteen,  upon  whom  the  tower  in  Siloam 
fell  and  slew  them,  think  ye  that  they  were  sinners 
above  all  men  dwelling  in  Jerusalem  ? "  Having  put  the 
first  unanswerable  question  to  his  Galilean  hearers,  he 
puts  this  to  the  Jerusalemites,  still  more  self-righteous, 
and  still  more  apt,  it  may  be,  to  imagine,  that  in  this 
case,  if  in  any,  God  had  drawn  a  broad  line  of  dis- 
tinction between  them  and  these  atrocious  sinners, 
whom  he  not  only  suffered  to  perish,  but  destroyed, 
as  it  AS'cre,  with  his  own  hand.  Yes,  they  might  have 
said,  if  they  had  spoken  their  whole  heart,  we  do 
think  that  they  were  more  guilty  than  the  rest  of  us, 
and  we  think  so  on  the  authority  of  God  himself,  who 
has  spared  us,  even  in  the  act  of  destroying  them. 
But  whether  uttered  or  suppressed,  this  interpretation 
of  God's  judgments  meets  the  same  indignant  contra- 
diction as  before,  and  the  same  unexpected  introver- 
sion of  the  sentence  upon  those  who  had  pronounced 
it :  "I  tell  you  nay,  but  except  ye  repent," — yes,  you, 
of  Jerusalem,  no  less  than  these  despised  Galileans, 
"  except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish." 

There  is  something  so  paradoxical  in  this  repeated 


LUKE  13,  3.  21S 

contradiction  of  what  seems  to  be  a  plausible  and 
pious  sentiment,  that  a  correct  apprehension  of  the 
latent  error,  and  of  the  truth  which  our  Saviour,  with 
such  emphasis,  opposes  to  it,  may  serve  not  only  to 
vindicate  the  truth  of  this  authoritative  declaration, 
and  its  perfect  consistency  with  all  God's  attributes 
and  all  his  acts,  so  far  as  either  can  be  known  by  us, 
but  also  to  correct  the  same  insidious  error,  if  it 
should  make  its  way  into  our  own  minds,  or  should 
now  be  lying  hid  there  under  some  specious  pretext 
of  hostility  to  sin,  and  zeal  for  God's  vindicatory 
justice. 

1.  That  suiFering  is  a  penal  consequence  of  sin, 
seems  to  be  a  dictate  of  reason  and  conscience,  no  less 
than  of  revelation.  At  all  events,  it  is  a  doctrine  of 
religion  which,  above  most  others,  seems  to  command 
the  prompt  assent  of  the  human  understanding.  They 
who  acknowledge  the  existence  of  a  God  at  all,  have 
probably  no  impressions  of  his  power  or  his  justice 
stronger  than  those  which  are  associated  with  his 
providential  strokes,  and  more  especially  with  death 
as  the  universal  penalty.  War,  pestilence,  and  fam- 
ine, are  regarded  by  the  common  sense  of  men,  not 
merely  as  misfortunes  but  as  punishments,  and  noth- 
ing more  effectually  rouses  in  the  multitude  the  recol- 
lection of  their  sins  than  the  report  or  the  approach 
of  these  providential  scourges.  In  all  this,  the  pop- 
ular judgment  is  according  to  the  truth.  The  miser- 
ies which  we  witness  or  experience  are  bu.t  so  many 
memorials 

•'  Of  man's  first  disobedience  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree,  whose  mortal  taste 
Bronirht  death  Into  the  world  and  all  our  woe." 


220  SERMONS. 

In  the  recognition  and  assertion  of  this  great  truth, 
there  is  no  fear  of  excess.  The  fact  is  one  which  can- 
not be  exaggerated,  and  ought  not  to  be  extenuated, 
much  less  dissembled  or  denied.  Sin  is  the  ultimate 
and  universal  source  of  sorrow,  and  all  God's  provi- 
dential visitations  are  unequivocal  signs  of  his  dis- 
pleasure against  sin. 

2.  What  is  thus  true  in  the  aofOTeorate  must  needs 
be  true  in  detail.  If  all  the  suftering  in  the  world 
]5roceeds  from  sin,  then  every  Divine  judgment  in 
particular  must  flow  from  the  same  source.  N^ot 
only  in  reference  to  the  sum  total  of  man's  sufierings, 
but  in  reference  to  eveiy  pang,  it  may  be  said,  with 
truth  and  certainty,  that  sin  has  been  at  work,  that 
this  is  the  natural  and  necessary  consequence  of  sin, 
and  that  not  of  sin  as  an  abstraction,  nor  of  sin  as  the 
common  undivided  heritage  of  Adam's  offspring,  but 
of  sin  as  the  property  and  character  of  individual  re- 
sponsible agents.  In  other  words,  wherever  we  see 
suffering,  we  see  a  proof,  not  only  that  there  is  sin 
somewhere,  to  account  for  and  to  justify  that  suffer- 
ing, but  that  the  individual  sufferer  is  a  sinner.  Tlie 
only  exception  to  this  general  statement,  which  the 
world  has  ever  seen,  in  reality  confirms  it.  Christ 
was  beyond  comparison  the  greatest  sufferer  of  our 
race  ;  yet  Christ  was  "  holy,  harmless,  un defiled,  and 
separate  from  sinners."  But  his  sufferings  were  vi- 
carious ;  he  bore  our  griefs  and  carried  our  sorrows  ; 
he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  he  was  bruised 
for  our  iniquities.  This,  which  is  one  of  the  gi-eat 
fundamental  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  while  it  shows, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  indissoluble  connection  between 


LUKE  13,  3.  221 

sin  and  suffering,  shows,  on  tlie  other,  how  the  great- 
est sufferer  coukl  be  free  from  sin,  although  in  every 
case  but  this,  the  least  sufferer  must  be  a  sinner.  "We 
need  feel  no  hesitation,  therefore,  in  asserting  either 
of  these  two  propositions :  1,  that  all  suffering  is  the 
fruit  of  sin ;  and,  2,  that  everj  sufferer  is  a  sinner. 

3.  And  yet  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  this  doctrine  thus  presented,  against  which 
even  the  better  feelings  of  our  nature  are  disposed  to 
revolt.  This  is  especially  the  case  when  we  contem- 
plate instances  of  aggravated  suffering  endured  by 
those  who  are  comparatively  innocent,  and  still  more 
when  the  sufferings  of  such  are  immediately  occa- 
sioned by  the  wickedness  of  others.  Can  it  be  that 
the  dying  agonies  of  one  w^ho  falls  a  victim  to  the 
murderous  revenge  or  the  reckless  cupidity  of  others, 
are  to  be  regarded  as  the  punishment  of  sin  ?  Against 
this  representation  all  our  human  sympathies  and 
charities  appear  to  cry  aloud,  and  so  intense  is  the 
reaction  in  some  minds,  that  they  will  not  even  listen 
to  the  explanation,  which  may  nevertheless  be  given, 
and  which  I  will  endeavour  to  give  now. 

4.  This  feeling  of  repugnance  to  the  doctrine  noAV 
in  question,  though  it  springs  from  a  native  sense  of 
justice,  is  mistaken  in  its  application,  because  founded 
upon  two  misapprehensions.  In  the  first  place,  it  as- 
sumes that  the  sufferings,  in  the  case  supposed,  are 
said  to  be  the  penal  fruits  of  sin  committed  against 
man,  and  more  especially  against  the  authors  of  the 
sufferings  endured.  Hence  we  are  all  accustomed  to 
enhance  the  guilt  of  murder,  in  seme  cases,  by  con- 
trasting the  virtues  of  the  victim  with  the  crimes  of 


222  SEivMONS 

the  destroyer.  And  in  sncli  a  s^ate  of  m.'nd,  not  one 
of  us,  perhaps,  would  be  prepared  to  hear  with  pa- 
tience, that  the  murder  was  a  righteous  recompense 
of  sin.  But  why?  Because  at  such  a  moment,  we 
can  look  no  further  than  the  proximate  immediate 
agent,  and  to  think  of  him  as  having  any  claim  or 
right  of  punishment  is  certainly  preposterous.  But 
when  the  excitement  is  allayed,  and  we  have  lost 
sight  of  the  w^orthless  and  justly  abhorred  instrument, 
we  may  perhaps  be  able  to  perceive  that  in  the  pres- 
ence of  an  infinitely  holy  God,  the  most  innocent  vic- 
tim of  man's  cruelty  is  in  himself  deserving  only  of 
displeasure,  or  at  least  that  no  difficulties  hang  about 
that  supposition  except  such  as  belong  to  the  wdiole 
subject  of  sin  and  punishment. 

5.  If  any  doubt  remains,  it  probably  has  reference 
to  the  seeming  disproportion  of  the  punishment  to  that 
of  others,  or  to  any  particular  offence  wnth  which  the 
sufferer  seems  chargeable  in  comparison  with  others. 
Here  again  the  feeling  is  not  only  natural,  but  in  its 
principle  a  just  one,  yet  entirely  misdirected  under 
the  influence  of  a  second  error  with  respect  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Bible  on  the  subject.  The  miscon- 
ception lies  in  the  confounding  of  the  general  propo- 
sitions, which  have  been  already  stated  and  affirmed; 
1,  that  all  suffering  is  the  penal  consequence  of  sin, 
and  2,  that  every  individual  sufferer  is  a  sinner,  with 
the  very  different  proposition,  that  every  providential 
stroke  is  a  specific  punishment  of  some  specific  sin, 
or  that  the  measure  of  men's  sufferings  here  is  in 
exact  proportion  to  their  guilt,  so  that  they  upon 
whom  extraordinary  judgments  seem  to  fall  are  there- 


I 


JiUKE  13,  3.  223 

by  proved  to  be  extraordinary  sinners.  These  doc- 
trines are  not  only  quite  distinct  from  those  before 
propounded ;  they  do  not  even  follow  from  them  as 
logical  deductions.  They  may  be  consistently,  and 
actually  are  repudiated  and  abjured  by  those  who 
steadfastly  maintain,  that  all  suffering  is  from  sin, 
and  that  all  sufferers  are  sinners.  The  same  mistake 
is  palpable  enough,  and  therefore  easily  avoided,  when 
confined  to  matters  of  the  present  life,  or  questions  of 
mere  temporal  morality.  If  men  would  be  as  rational 
and  candid  in  their  judgments  of  spiritual  matters, 
as  they  often  are  in  those  pertaining  to  this  world, 
there  would  be  less  disposition  to  reject  important 
doctrines  of  religion  on  account  of  their  abuse  or  the 
unauthorised  additions  made  to  them. 

6.  The  effect  of  this  last  error  is  the  more  per- 
nicious, and  the  cure  of  it  more  difficult,  because  the 
doctrine  which  it  falsely  imputes  to  Christianity  is 
really  maintained  by  many  Christians,  as  well  as  by 
many  who  make  no  such  professions.  There  has  in  all 
ages  been  a  disposition  to  regard  remarkable  calam- 
ities as  providential  judgments  on  particular  offences, 
and  a  morbid  curiosity  in  tracing  the  connection  be- 
tween such  crimes  and  such  punishments.  The  exist- 
ence of  such  a  disposition  in  the  human  heart,  and 
the  plausibility  with  which  it  can  defend  itself  by  a 
confident  appeal  to  undisputed  facts,  and  to  undis- 
puted principles  of  morals,  have  never  been  more 
forcibly  and  fully  set  forth,  or  more  pointedly  and 
solemnly  rebuked  than  in  the  book  of  Job,  one  grand 
design  of  which,  to  say  the  least,  is  to  expose  this 
errcr  and  refute  it.     That  it  still  existed  in  the  minds 


224  SERMOlsS. 

of  those  to  wliom  our  Lord  addressed  ihe  .anguage  of 
tlic  text  is  obvious  enough,  and  its  continued  existence 
at  the  present  day  is,  alas,  no  less  so.  It  may  not  now 
be  pushed  to  the  extreme  reached  by  some  of  Christ's 
disciples,  when  they  "  asked  him,  saying.  Lord,  who 
did  sin,  this  man  or  his  parents,  that  he  was  born 
blind  ?  "  But  it  exists  and  operates,  and  often  unex- 
pectedly betrays  itself  in  a  censorious  attempt  to  trace 
the  sufierings  of  others  back  to  certain  causes,  often 
more  offensive  in  the  sight  of  human  censors  and  in- 
quisitors than  in  that  of  a  heart-searching  God.  But 
even  where  the  sin  charged  is  indeed  a  sin,  its  ex- 
istence is  hastily  inferred  from  the  supposed  judg- 
ment, without  any  other  evidence .  whatever.  This 
uncharitable  tendency  can  be  cured  only  by  the  cor- 
rection of  the  error  which  produces  it. 

7.  But  in  attempting  this  correction,  there  is  need 
of  extreme  caution,  as  in  all  other  cases,  where  an 
error  has  arisen,  not  from  sheer  invention  or  denial  of 
the  truth,  but  from  exaggeration,  or  perversion,  or 
abuse  of  truth  itself.  And  the  more  certain  and  im- 
portant the  truth  thus  mistaken  or  abused,  the  more 
imperative  the  need  of  caution,  lest,  while  we  gather 
up  the  tares,  we  root  up  also  the  wheat  with  them. 
Li  the  case  before  us  this  necessity  has  not  been  al- 
ways practically  recognized  by  those  who  have  under- 
taken to  vindicate  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  but  who, 
in  consequence  of  this  neglect,  have  verified  the  pro- 
verb, that  the  remedy  is  sometimes  worse  than  the 
disease.  They,  for  example,  who  would  guard  against 
tlie  error  now  in  question  by  denying  a  particular 
providence,  are  not   only  chargeable   with   wilfully 


LUKE  13,  3.  225 

receding  from  tlie  ground  of  Christianity  to  tliat  of 
heathenism,  nay  from  the  higher  ground  of  Plato  to 
the  lower  ground  of  Epicurus,  but  with  making  Christ 
himself  guilty  of  the  grossest  inconsistency,  forgetful 
that  the  same  authoritative  voice  which  twice  said,  in 
the  case  before  us,  "  I  tell  you  nay,"  had  expressly 
tauo-ht  in  the  foreofoino;  context,  that  without  God's 
knowledge  and  his  leave,  not  a  hair  falls,  or  a  lily 
withers,  or  a  sparrow  dies.  This  is  one  of  those  cases 
in  which  the  simplest  and  apparently  most  childlike 
teachings  of  religion  coincide  with  the  ultimate  attain- 
ments of  philosophy,  since  no  reasoning  or  speculation 
on  this  subject  has  availed  to  get  beyond  the  grand 
yet  elementary  conclusion,  that  if  there  is  a  provi- 
dence at  all  it. must  be  universal,  and  that  no  distinc- 
tion can  be  drawn  between  the  gi-eat  and  small  as 
objects  of  God's  notice  and  his  care,  without  infring- 
ing on  the  absolute  perfection  of  his  nature  by  re- 
stricting his  omniscience,  or  at  least  by  applying  to 
it  terms  and  conditions  which  have  no  propriety  or 
truth  except  in  reference  to  our  own  finite  nature  and 
the  necessary  limitations  of  our  knowledge. 

8.  Another  false  and  dangerous  corrective  of  tlie 
error  now  in  question — still  more  insidious  because 
it  approximates  more  nearly  to  the  truth — is  that 
which,  admitting  a  particular  providence  and  a  gen- 
eral connection  between  sin  and  suffering,  denies  any 
penal  or  judicial  connection  between  particular  provi- 
dential strokes  and  the  sins  of  the  individual  sufferer. 
This  doctrine,  when  fairly  stated,  is  opposed,  not  only 
to  the  word  of  God,  but  to  experience  and  the  com- 
mon sense  of  mankind.     To  deny  that  the   bloated 

VOL.  II. — 10* 


226  SLRMONS. 

countenance,  the  trembling  limbs,  the  decaying  mind^ 
the  wasted  fortune,  and  the  blasted  fame  of  the  drunk 
ard  or  the  libertine,  are  penally  consequences  of  sin, 
of  his  own  sin,  of  his  own  besetting,  reigning,  darling 
sin,  would  be  ridiculous,  and  all  men  would  regard  it 
in  that  light.  And  the  same  thing  is  true  of  some 
extraordinary  providences.  When  a  bold  blasphemer, 
in  the  act  of  imprecating  vengeance  on  his  own  head, 
falls  down  dead  before  us,  it  would  argue  an  extreme 
of  philosophical  caution  or  of  skeptical  reserve,  to 
hesitate  to  say,  as  the  magicians  said  to  Pharaoh, 
when  they  found  themselves  confronted  with  effects 
beyond  the  capacity  of  any  human  or  created  power 
— "  This  is  the  finger  of  God."  It  was  conceivable 
indeed  that  even  this  might  be  a  magical  illusion, 
near  akin  though  far  superior  to  their  own,  and  yet 
the  evidence  appears  to  have  convinced  them.  So  in 
the  case  supposed,  it  is  conceivable  and  possible,  that 
even  such  surprising  correspondences  may  have  some 
other  cause  than  that  which  forces  itself  on  the  mind 
of  every  spectator  ;  but  it  does  so  force  itself,  and  does 
amount,  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  to  a  conclusive 
proof  of  a  direct  judicial  act  of  God's  vindicatory  jus- 
tice on  a  flagrant  and  notorious  sin. 

Now  any  one  such  case  would  be  sufficient  to  re- 
fute the  doctrine  that  men's  sufierings  have  nothing 
to  do  with  their  personal  sins,  in  the  way  of  penal 
retribution.  "What  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the  error, 
theoretical  or  practical,  which  Christ  condemns,  and 
against  which  we  are  warned  to  be  forever  on  our 
guard  ?  If  it  be  true,  not  only  that  suffering  in  gen- 
eral is  the  fruit  of  sin,  and  that  every  individual  suf- 


LUKE  13,  3.  227 

ferer  is  a  sinner,  but  that  particular  suiFerings  may 
be  recognized  as  penal  retributions  of  particular  sins, 
where  is  the  harm  in  tracing  the  connection,  for  our 
edification,  or  for  that  of  others  ?  The  answer  to  this 
question  is  a  prompt  and  simple  one,  and  may  be 
stated  under  three  particulars : 

The  first  is,  that  even  if  the  general  rule  be  granted, 
the  exceptions  are  so  many  and  notorious  as  to  render 
it  inapplicable  as  a  standard  or  criterion  of  character. 
A  rule  which,  if  applied  with  rigid  uniformity,  would 
directly  gainsay  the  Divine  decision  in  the  case  of  Job's 
three  friends,  and  brand,  as  the  chief  of  sinners,  the 
glorious  company  of  the  Apostles,  the  goodly  fellow- 
ship of  the  prophets,  the  noble  army  of  martyrs,  and 
a  countless  host  of  less  conspicuous  but  no  less  patient 
suff'erers,  unknown  perhaps  to  man,  but  precious  in 
the  sight  of  God,  must  needs  be  a  precarious  and  un- 
certain test.  The  second  answer  is,  that  this  is  a  mat- 
ter which  God  has  not  subjected  to  our  scrutiny. 
Although,  in  certain  cases,  both  of  common  experience 
and  extraordinary  judgment,  he  has  lifted  the  veil 
from  the  judicial  import  of  his  dispensations,  as  a 
timely  warning  to  presumptuous  sinners,  it  is  still 
true,  as  a  general  fact,  that  this  mysterious  connec- 
tion between  causes  and  effects,  is  not  among  the 
things  which  may  lawfully  and  usefully  excite  our 
curiosity,  but  rather  among  those  of  which  the  Scrip- 
ture says,  "  Secret  things  belong  unto  the  Lord  our 
God."  The  final  cause  of  this  reserve  may  perhaps 
be  found  in  the  third  reason  to  be  stated  for  abstain- 
ing from  such  inquisitions,  to  wit,  that  their  tendency, 
as  shown  by  all  experience,  is  not  so  much  to  edify 


238  SERMONS. 

as  to  subvert ;  not  so  much  to  wean  fron.  sin,  as  tc 
harden  in  self-rigliteoDsness,  by  letting  this  censorship 
of  other  men's  sins  and  other  men's  punishment,  divert 
our  thoughts  entirely  from  those  which  loe  commit,  oi 
those  which  we  are  to  experience. 

This  brings  us  to  the  lesson  taught  directly  in  the 
text  and  context,  as  to  the  only  safe  and  effectual  cor- 
rective of  the  error  which  we  have  been  considering. 
For  even  after  men  have  been  convinced  that  this 
censorious  inquisition  into  the  sin  and  punishment  of 
others  is  not  only  unavailing  but  pernicious,  they  may 
still  be  drawn  to  it  by  natural  dispositions  which 
they  cannot  resist  or  overcome.  To  counteract  this 
wayward  tendency,  our  Saviour  here  employs  the 
only  efficacious  method.  Without  diverting  the  at- 
tention of  his  hearers  from  the  great  humiliating 
truth,  that  suffering  is  the  fruit  and  penal  consequence 
of  sin,  he  sliows  them,  with  consummate  wisdom,  that 
it  admits  an  application  much  more  certain  and  more 
salutary-  than  the  one  which  they  were  accustomed  or 
disposed  to  make  of  it.  Their  •  ftivourite  inference 
from  the  doctrine  Avas,  that  those  who  suffered  more 
were  greater  sinners  than  themselves.  The  one  which 
our  Lord  teaches  them  to  draw,  is,  that  if  some  mem- 
bers of  the  human  family  were  thus  overtaken  in 
their  sins  and  visited  with  condign  punishment,  the 
same  perdition  must  await  the  rest,  however  long  de- 
ferred by  the  divine  forbearance.  Instead  of  valuing 
themselves,  because  they  had  escaped  thus  far,  they 
ought  rather  to  assure  themselves  that  they  should 
not  escape  forever.  The  judgments  which  they  saw 
descend  on  others,  did  not  prove  them  to  be  greater 


LUKE  13,  3.  229 

Binnei'S  than  themselves ;  they  only  prov^ed  that  the 
guilt,  of  which  they  were  themselves  partakers, 
was  entitled  and  exposed  to  the  divine  wrath,  and 
that  the  course  of  wisdom,  therefore,  was  to  flee  from 
the  wrath  to  come,  instead  of  fancying  themselves  to 
be  beyond  its  reach  or  able  to  resist  it. 

This  is  only  one  out  of  a  multitude  of  instances,  in 
which  our  Saviour's  divine  wisdom  is  evinced  by  the 
facility  and  poM'er  with  wJiicli  he  converts  a  curious, 
or  even  an  insidious  question,  into  an  engine  of  con- 
viction. On  this  very  same  occasion,  when  a  person 
in  the  multitude  requested  him  to  act  as  an  umpire 
between  him  and  his  brother,  in  a  matter  of  inheri- 
tance, our  Lord  took  occasion,  from  the  untimely  and 
irrelevant  request,  to  unmask  and  reprove  the  cove- 
tousness  latent  under  what  might  seem  to  be  a  lawful 
and  commendable  assertion  of  one's  legal  rights.  A 
little  afterwards,  when  Peter  asked  liim  whether  his 
injunctions  of  watchfulness  were  meant  for  all  be- 
lievers or  for  those  who  held  official  station — perliaps 
not  without  some  complacent  reference  to  his  own 
position — iustead  of  a  direct  reply,  our  Lord  describes, 
in  clear  though  figurative  terms,  the  character  of  a 
faithful  office-bearer  in  his  church,  leaving  the  appli- 
cation to  the  consciences  of  those  who  heard  him. 
So  in  the  case  more  immediately  before  us,  instead  of 
expressing  indignation  or  astonishment  at  Pilate's 
cruelty,  and  far  from  conniving  at  tlie  secret  inferen- 
ces drawn  by  those  around  him  from  this  atrocious 
act,  and  the  casualty  mentioned  with  it — to  the  dis- 
advantage of  the  victims  as  compared  witli  tlieni- 
Belves — he  teaches  them  to  look  at  home — to  tremble 


230  SERMONS. 

for  themselves — to  cease  from  all  invidious  specula' 
tion  on  the  mao-nitude  of  other  men's  offences — as  de- 
termined  by  the  weight  of  their  misfortunes  or  the 
manner  of  their  death — and  look  towards  the  similar 
perdition  which,  in  one  form  or  another,  sooner  or 
later,  awaited  all  involved  in  the  same  general  con 
demnation. 

Another  characteristic  of  our  Saviour's  teaching, 
here  exemplified,  is,  that  even  in  his  most  severe  de- 
nunciations, he  is  far  from  shutting  up  the  door  of 
mercy.  By  the  very  act  of  holding  up  repentance, 
or  a  thorough  change  of  mind,  and  character,  and 
life,  as  an  essential,  indispensable  condition  of  escape 
from  the  destruction  which  he  threatens,  he  reveals 
the  glorious  and  blessed  truth,  that  such  escape  is 
possible.  The  promise,  "repent,  and  ye  shall  live," 
is  wrapped  up  in  the  threatening,  "  Except  ye  repent, 
ye  shall  all  likewise  perish." 

Here  then  is  the  use  which  this  instructive  pas- 
sage teaches  us  to  make  of  the  calamities  of  others, 
M'hether  those  which  fall  'on  individuals  in  private 
life,  or  those  which  strike  whole  classes  and  commu- 
nities. The  whole  secret  may  be  told  in  one  short 
word,  Eepent.  As  the  goodness  of  God  to  ourselves 
ought  to  lead  us  to  repentance,  so  ought  his  judg- 
ments upon  others  to  produce  the  same  effect.  Every 
such  judgment  should  remind  us  that  our  own  escape 
is  but  a  respite — that  if  they  who  perish  in  our  sight 
were  guilty,  we  are  guilty  too,  and  that  unless  we  re- 
pent we  must  all  likewise  perish. 

This  means  something  more  than  perish  also ;  it 
means  perish  in  like  manner ;  if  not  with  the  same 


I 


LUKE  13,  3.  231 

external  tokens  of  perdition,  with  a  ruin  no  less  real, 
no  less  fearful,  no  less  final.  As  addressed  by  Christ 
to  the  conteraporarj^  Jews,  the  words  had  a  terrible 
significance,  which  they  were  not  prepared  to  com- 
prehend or  to  appreciate,  but  which  received  a  fearful 
illustration  from  subsequent  events.  In  less  than  half 
a  century  from  the  date  of  this  solemn  admonition, 
the  atrocities  of  Pilate  and  the  casualty  of  Siloam 
were  to  be  repeated  on  a  scale  of  horrid  and  terrific 
grandeur.  The  blood  of  thousands,  in  the  frenzied 
desperation  of  intestine  strife,  was  mingled  with  their 
sacrifices,  not  by  Roman  swords,  but  by  their  own ; 
and,  as  the  eighteen  had  been  crushed  by  the  fall  of 
a  single  tower,  so  an  untold  multitude  were  to  lie  en- 
tombed beneath  the  prostrate  walls  of  their  polluted 
temple. 

In  reference  to  these  points  of  resemblance,  the 
two  incidents  referred  to  in  the  context,  might  be  said 
to  typify  or  symbolize  the  national  catastrophe  which 
was  then  approaching ;  and,  in  refei'ence  to  the  points, 
Christ  might  say  to  those  who  heard  him,  as  represent- 
atives of  Israel,  if  not  as  individuals,  "  Except  ye  re- 
pent, ye  shall  all  likeioise  perish  " — as  if  lie  had  said, 
Except  ye  repent,  your  blood  shall  be  mingled  with 
your  sacrifices,  too ;  you,  too,  shall  be  crushed  be- 
neath the  towers  of  your  temple;  even  in  reference  to 
the  mode  of  your  destruction,  "  ye  shall  all  likewise 
perish !  " 

But,  even  leaving  out  of  view  these  outward  coin- 
cidences, striking  as  they  are,  the  words  are  full  of  sol- 
emn warning  and  instruction,  not  only  to  the  old  Jews, 
but  to  us,  upon  whom  these  ends  of  the  world  are  come. 


232  SERMONS. 

They  give  a  tongue  and  an  articulate  utterance  to  every 
signal  providence,  to  every  sudden  death,  to  every  open 
grave,  to  every  darkened  house,  to  every  scattered  for- 
tune, to  every  blighted  reputation,  to  every  broken 
heart,  in  society  around  us.  They  command  us,  they 
entreat  us  to  Avithdraw  our  view  from  the  calamities  of 
others,  as  proofs  of  their  iniquity,  and  to  view  them 
rather  as  memorials  of  our  own,  of  that  common  guilt 
to  which  these  manifold  distresses  owe  their  origin,  and 
in  which  we,  alas,  are  so  profoundly  and  so  ruinously 
implicated.  Oh,  my  hearers,  can  you  not  hear  all 
this,  as  it  were,  articulately  uttered  by  the  Providence 
of  God  ?  If  you  can,  then  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is 
saying,  just  as  really  and  solemnly  to  you  as  he  said 
to  those  around  him  eighteen  centuries  ago,  Tliink  ye 
that  this  or  that  man,  overtaken  in  his  sins,  and  swept 
away  by  some  terrific  judgment,  was  a  sinner  above 
all  that  dwell  in  New  York  or  America  ?  "I  tell  you 
nay ;  I  tell  you  nay."  You  are  yourself,  perhaps,  a 
greater  sinner ;  you  are  certainly  so  great  a  sinner 
that,  "  except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish," 
if  not  in  the  same  way  to  the  eyes  of  man,  yet  as 
really,  as  terribly,  as  hopelessly,  as  endlessly.  "Why 
should  we  think  of  measuring  gradations  in  perdition, 
or  of  comforting  ourselves  that  we  are  not  so  bad  as 
others,  if  we  perish  after  all  ?  Oh,  my  friends,  to  per- 
ish is  to  perish,  whether  as  the  chief  of  sinners,  or  as 
something  less.  The  circumstantial  differences  in  the 
fate  of  those  who  perish  will  be  lost  in  its  essential 
identity.  And  even  the  momentary  consolation  of 
this  difference  may  be  denied  us.     Wher  you  hear  of 


LUKE  13,  3.  233 

war,  of  famine,  and  of  pestilence,  ,is  wasting  other 
lands  or  other  portions  of  our  town,  yon  may,  perhaps, 
congratulate  yourself  that  these  desolating  scourges 
are  far  distant;  or,  if  any  of  them  be  approaching, 
that  they  only  sweep  away  the  refuse  of  society,  and 
move  beyond  the  precincts  of  the  magic  circle  where 
you  are  yourself  intrenched.  Alas  !  so  thought  the 
people  of  Jerusalem  and  Galilee,  who  told  our  Saviour 
of  the  massacre  of  Pilate  and  the  downfell  of  the  tower 
in  Siloam,  You,  like  them,  maybe  mistaken — like 
them,  and  like  their  fathers,  in  the  days  of  Isaiah,  to 
whom  he  said,  "Wherefore  hear  the  word  of  the 
Lord  ye  scornful  men,  that  rule  this  people  which  is 
in  Jerusalem.  Because  ye  have  said,  we  have  made  a 
covenant  with  death,  and  with  hell  are  at  agreement ; 
when  the  overflowing  scourge  shall  pass  through,  it 
shall  not  come  unto  us,  for  we  have  made  this  our 
refuge,  and  under  falsehood  have  we  hid  ourselves. 
Therefore,  thus  saith  tlic  Lord  God,  Behold  I  lay  in 
Zion  for  a  foundation  a  stone,  a  tried  stone,  a  precious 
corner-stone,  a  sure  foundation  :  he  that  believeth 
shall  not  make  haste.  Judgment  also  will  I  lay  to 
the  line  and  righteousness  to  the  plummet,  and  the 
hail  shall  sweep  away  the  refuge  of  lies,  and  the  waters 
shall  overflow  the  hiding-place.  And  your  covenant 
with  death  shall  be  annulled,  and  your  agreement 
with  hell  shall  not  stand  ;  when  the  overflowing  scourge 
shall  pass  through,  then  ye  shall  be  trodden  down  by 
it,"  &c.,  &c.  If  that  consumption  is  again  let  loose 
upon  the  earth,  and  if  it  has  a  voice,  methinks  I  hear 
it  saying  even  now  to  us,  Suppose  ye  that  they  who 


234  SERMONS. 

died  in  Ireland  of  famine,  and  in  Mexico  of  battles, 
and  in  Asia,  Europe,  and  America  of  cholera,  were 
sinners  above  all  who  dwell  in  the  four  quarters  of 
the  earth  ?  I  tell  you  nay  ;  I  tell  you  nay ;  but  ez- 
cept  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish  ! 


XIII. 

Isaiah  53,  3. — He  is  despised  and  rejected  of  men. 

There  is  scarcely  any  thing  more  characteristic  of 
the  masses  of  mankind,  than  the  facility  -with  -which 
they  can  he  roused  and  set  in  motion,  by  any  specious 
promise  to  improve  their  temporal  condition.  Even 
where  their  actual  state  is  not  one  of  extraordinary 
suffering,  nor  that  'which  is  offered  in  its  place  pecu- 
liarly attractive,  nor  the  means  by  -which  it  is  pro- 
posed to  accomplish  it  remarkably  appropriate  or  effi- 
cacious, some  natural  propensity  to  change  still  ope- 
rates in  favour  of  the  new  proposal,  and  vast  multi- 
tudes are  instantly  pervaded,  as  it  were,  b}'  a  galvanic 
influence,  entirely  disproportionate  to  the  visible  in- 
ducements, and  apparently  independent  of  all  rational 
considerations. 

There  are  individuals,  and  even  classes  of  society, 
which  seem  to  remain  proof  against  this  popular  sus- 
ceptibility, and  take  no  part  in  the  exciting  move- 
ments which  it  generates.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  cases,  still  more  numerous  and  marked, 
in  which  this  same  susceptibility  is  carried  to  a  length 
which  verges  on  insanity  ;  and  this  extreme  may  fairly 
neutralize  or  cancel  that  already  mentioned,  so  as  to 


236  SERMONS. 

leave  the  general  statement  still  emphatically  true, 
that  this  mobility  and  readiness  to  catch  at  new 
schemes  for  improving  the  condition  of  society,  does 
really  belong  to  the  masses  of  mankind,  as  a  promi 
nent  feature  of  their  common  character.  I  speak  of 
the  masses,  not  in  any  invidious  or  unfavourable  sense, 
as  opposed  to  the  select  few  who  are  thought,  by 
themselves  or  others,  to  monopolize  refinement  and  in- 
telligence ;  but  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  expression, 
as  denoting  great  numbers,  and  even  whole  commu- 
nities, in  opposition  to  smaller  bodies,  and  still  more 
to  insulated  individuals.  For,  one  of  the  most  strik- 
ing points  connected  with  the  general  fact  in  question, 
is  the  uniformity  with  which  it  may  be  verified,  upon 
the  largest  scale  of  observation  and  comparison.  'Not 
only  may  the  same  cause  be  seen  to  operate  in  a  vast 
aggregate  of  individual  cases,  but  the  actual  and  visi- 
ble effects  which  it  produces,  are  of  a  social,  not  to 
say  a  national,  description.  That  is  to  say,  the  move- 
ments prompted  by  this  potent  and  mysterious  spring 
in  man's  constitution,  are  not  merely  personal,  or  lim- 
ited to  small  organic  bodies,  but  the  movements  of 
societies,  communities,  or  nations,  by  a  common  im- 
pulse, as  if  suddenly  endowed  with  a  rational  and 
moral  individuality. 

This  is  abundantly  verified  by  histor}^,  which  ex- 
hibits, when  surveyed  upon  a  large  scale,  nothing 
more  distinctly  marked,  or  more  impressive  to  the  eje 
of  the  intelligent  observer,  than  those  great  migra- 
tions, the  unsettling  and  removal  of  whole  races,  which 
have  so  often  changed  the  whole  condition  of  society, 
and  given  complexion  to  all  after  times.     The  profane 


ISAIAH  53,  3.  237 

traditions  of  the  old  Tvorld  are  unanimous,  amidst 
their  variations  as  to  all  things  else,  in  showing  ns  the 
surface  of  primeval  history,  however  stagnant  and 
monotonous  in  general,  as  repeatedly  broken  and  en- 
livened by  these  earth  slides  and  avalanches  of  mi- 
gration— the  abrupt,  and,  for  the  most  part,  unac- 
countable removal  of  the  vast  living  masses  from 
their  original    or   immemorial   homes  to  new  ones. 

The  earliest  history  of  Greece  is  nothing  but  a 
complicated  maze  of  such  migrations  ;  and  the  same 
thing  may  be  said,  in  due  proportion,  of  the  infantile 
reminiscences  of  every  other  ancient  people.  Even 
the  New  World  forms  no  exception  to  this  general 
statement.  According  to  the  Mexican  traditions,  the 
old  race  which  established  the  empire  overthrown  by 
Cortez,  had  been  wandering  eight  centuries  before  it 
settled  on  that  lofty  table-land.  With  all  allowance 
for  traditional  corruption  and  exaggeration,  there  is,  no 
doubt,  truth  in  these  accounts,  for  several  reasons,  and 
especially  because  they  substantially  agree  with  sacred 
history,  which  sets  before  us,  at  a  vevy  early  period, 
the  imposing  sight  of  a  great  human  current,  setting 
from  the  source  of  population,  in  the  central  valley  of 
South-w^estern  Asia,  and  represents  even  God's  pe- 
culiar people,  as  passing  through  a  series  of  remarka- 
ble migrations. 

To  show  the  confirmation  of  the  same  thing,  in  the 
history  of  later  times,  I  need  only  allude  to  the  repeated 
inundations  of  the  Roman  empire  by  immense  and  over- 
whelming floods  of  foreign  population  from  some  un- 
known reservoir  or  fountain,  following  each  other  like 
successive  floods  of  lava,  from  repeated  eruptions  of 


238  SESM0N3. 

Vesuvius  or  Etna,  sweeping  away  existing  institutions, 
and  almost  obliterating  every  ancient  landmark ;  so 
that  Europe,  as  it  now  is,  or  as  it  lately  was,  derives 
the  most  marked  peculiarities  of  its  condition,  from 
the  presence  and  the  power  of  these  so-called  Bar- 
barians. 

For  these  great  movements  of  the  human  race, 
historians  have  been  puzzled  to  account.  Ko  one  hy- 
pothesis affords  an  adequate  solution.  That  the 
shifting  masses  have  been  started  by  the  want  of  room, 
or  of  subsistence,  or  by  a  definite  desire  of  better  set- 
tlements, may  serve  to  explain  some  cases,  but  admit 
not  of  a  general  application,  since,  in  many  instances, 
the  current  of  migration  has  set  out  from  spacious 
regions,  rich  but  thinly  settled,  to  lands  already  over- 
stocked, if  not  exhausted,  so  that  one  large  popula- 
tion must  be  destroyed,  or  at  least  displaced,  to  make 
way  for  another  ;  while  in  many  cases  there  appears 
to  have  been  no  desire  of  settlement  at  all,  but  the 
masses,  once  set  in  motion,  have  continued  to  move 
on,  until  lost  in  the  surrounding  nations  or  destroyed 
by  collision  with  bodies  harder  than  themselves. 

This  difficulty  in  explaining  the  phenomenon  on 
any  ordinary  principles  of  action,  only  makes  it  more 
adapted  to  the  end  for  which  I  cite  it,  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  restlessness  and  feverish  mobility  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  masses  of  mankind.  That  it  has 
not  been  destroyed  by  the  spread  of  civilization  or  of 
free  institutions,  we  may  satisfy  ourselves  by  simply 
looking  round  us — watching  the  movements — count- 
ing the  pulsations  of  the  great  body  politic,  of  which 
we  form  a  part.     Look  at  the  symptoms  of  suscepti- 


ISAIAH  53,  3.  239 

bilitj  in  reference  to  the  three  great  worldly  interests 
of  health,  wealth,  and  freedom.  Observe  the  easy 
faith,  the  persuasible  docility  of  men  in  general  with 
respect  to  sovereign  remedies  for  some  or  all  diseases. 
See  how  the  popular  credulity  keeps  pace  with  the 
very  extravagance  of  the  pretensions,  so  that  men 
seem,  by  some  strange  inversion  of  the  ordinary  laws 
of  reasoning,  to  believe  and  be  convinced  in  inverse 
proportion  to  the  evidence  afforded. 

Look  again  at  the  avidity  with  which  new  fields 
of  speculation,  or  new  mines  of  wealth  are  seized  upon 
without  a  disposition  to  contest  the  most  improbable 
assertions,  or  rather  with  a  perverse  disposition  to  lay 
hold  of  what  is  most  improbable  in  preference  to 
what  is  less  so,  and  to  make  a  kind  of  merit  of  be- 
lieving it,  and  proving  the  sincerity  of  the  belief 
by  corresponding  action,  not  unfrequently  in\"olving 
painful  sacrifice  of  actual  possession  or  of  cheering 
prospect  for  what  may  be  a  chimera,  for  what  must 
be  an  unsatisfying  portion.  All  this  is  exemplified 
among  ourselves. 

For  a  third  example,  we  must  look  abroad  at  those 
tumultuous  excitements  in  the  sea  of  nations,  from 
which  we,  through  the  divine  mercy,  dwell  apart,  as 
having  already  realized  the  vision  of  which  others 
dream.  Without  detracting  in  the  least  from  the 
value  of  the  object  aimed  at,  the  secure  enjoyment  of 
civil  and  religious  freedom,  it  is  impossible  to  look  at 
these  commotions  from  our  post  of  observation  without 
seeing  how  the  rational  and  right  desire  of  liberty  is 
diluted  on  the  one  hand,  or  poisoned  on  the  other, 
with  childish  folly,  with  insane  illusion,  with  corrupt 


240  SERMONS. 

ambition,  and,  above  all,  witb  an  utterly  irrational 
credulity,  a  blind  and  superstitious  faitb  in  the  suf- 
ficiency of  theories  and  systems  to  heal  wounds  which 
have  been  bleeding  and  discharging  nearly  six  thou- 
sand years,  and  an  impious  reliance  upon  men,  and 
not  the  best  men,  to  effect  what  God  has  solemnly  re- 
served as  an  inalienable,  incommunicable  part  of  his 
divine  prerogative. 

From  all  this  it  is  easy  to  infer  that  we  do  no  in- 
justice to  ourselves  or  others,  when  we  represent  it  as 
a  characteristic  feature  of  man's  actual  condition,  that 
he  is  predisposed  to  look  with  favour  upon  any  spe- 
cious project  of  amelioration  that  his  bias,  in  relation 
to  such  schemes,  is  rather  to  credulity  than  scepticism, 
and  that  this  propensity  is  not  a  matter  of  prudential 
calculation,  but  proved  to  be  as  much  an  affection  of 
the  heart  as  of  the  head,  by  the  avidity  with  which 
the  inclinations  constantly  outrun  the  judgment,  and 
in  some  cases  wholly  supersede  its  action. 

It  would,  however,  be  at  variance  with  man's 
nature  as  a  rational  being,  if  his  reason  were  com- 
pletely set  at  naught,  or  even  held  in  abeyance,  by 
his  sense  of  want,  and  his  impatience  to  supply  it. 
While  the  restless  character  in  question  does  undoubt- 
edly arise  from  an  instinctive  consciousness  of  some- 
thing needed  to  appease  the  cravings  of  unsatisfied 
desire,  and  a  vague  belief  in  the  reality  of  something 
more  desirable  than  any  thing  as  yet  attained,  it 
seems  impossible  that  man,  without  a  forfeiture  of 
that  which  raises  him  above  the  brutes,  should  system- 
atically act  in  opposition  to  the  dictates  of  his  reason 
and  his  better  judgment,  or  perversely  choose  what 


ISAIAH  53,  3,  241 

he  cannot  but  see  to  be  least  entitled  to  liis  choice. 
Passion,  and  appetite,  and  strong  delusion  may  ob- 
scure his  perceptions  and  impede  the  action  of  his 
rational  powers,  but  cannot  utterly  destroy  them. 
And  accordingly  we  find  that,  in  relation  to  these 
very  schemes  and  hopes  of  temporal  advancement, 
there  is  a  vast  expenditure  of  cunning  and  sagacity 
in  order  to  secure  the  advantage  and  to  baffle  compe- 
tition. It  might  therefore  be  expected  from  analogy, 
Ihat  the  influence  exerted  upon  men  by  ofters  to 
ameliorate  their  actual  condition  would  bear  some 
proportion  to  the  greatness  of  the  evils  whicli  they 
actually  suffer,  to  the  fitness  and  eflicacy  of  the  means 
employed  to  bring  about  a  change,  and  to  the  value 
of  the  positive  advantages  bestowed  or  promised. 

Seeing  how  credulous  men  are,  how  ready  to  be- 
lieve and  act  on  the  authority  of  questionable  ev- 
idence, and  under  the  control  of  interested  guides, 
provided  there  is  any  possibility  of  bettering  their 
condition  after  all,  it  might  be  supposed  that  this 
facility  of  faith  and  action,  this  promptness  to  believe, 
and  this  eagerness  to  act  on  the  belief,  would  rise 
with  the  clearness  of  the  evidence  afforded,  and  the 
authority  by  which  the  movement  has  been  sanctioned 
or  required.  And,  as  the  strongest  case  conceivable, 
it  might  have  been  expected,  with  the  highst  antece- 
dent probability,  that  if  the  prospect,  opened  to  man- 
kind or  any  portion  of  the  race,  was  that  of  complete 
deliverance  from  the  worst  of  evils  by  the  use  of  means 
infallibly  effective,  and  if  they  were  summonei  and 
encouraged  to  the  use  of  these  by  an  authority  alike 
VOL.  ir. — 11 


242  SERMONS. 

incapable  of  error  and  deception:  I  say,  in  such  a 
case  as  I  have  just  supposed,  it  might  well  have  been 
inferred  from  all  analogy,  that  the  restless  disposition 
of  our  race  to  better  its  condition,  and  the  readiness 
with  which  it  is  convinced  that  such  amelioration  is 
attainable,  would  operate  at  once, -without  restraint, 
and  with  complete  unqualified  eifect  in  the  produc- 
tion of  the  change  proposed. 

With  this  antecedent  probability  let  us  now  com- 
pare the  fact  as  attested  by  the  most  authentic  ev- 
idence. The  key  to  history,  both  sacred  and  profane, 
is  furnished  by  the  fact  that,  after  man  had  fallen 
through  the  influence  of  evil  spirits,  and  God  had  de- 
termined to  restore  him  by  the  gift  of  his  own  Son  and 
Spirit,  he  foretold  to  our  first  jDarcnts,  or  rather  in 
their  presence  to  the  great  seducer,  that  there  was  to 
be  a  protracted  contest  between  two  antagonistic  races, 
called  in  the  prophecy  the  seed  of  the  serpent  and  the 
seed  of  the  woman  ;  a  warfare  full  of  fluctuations  and 
reverses,  but  ultimately  tending  to  the  triumph  of  the 
cause  of  truth,  and  righteousness,  and  mercy. 

Tliis  prospective  division  of  mankind  into  two 
great  parties  gives  complexion  to  all  history,  and  may 
be  traced  distinctly  from  the  date  of  the  prediction  to 
the  end  of  time.  The  first  visible  triumph  of  the  good 
cause  was  reserved  for  the  appearance  of  its  champion 
upon  earth,  when  it  was  symbolized  and  really  begun 
by  victories  openly  achieved  over  the  adverse  powers 
of  darkness.  To  prepare  for  his  appearance,  the  ex- 
plicit re^'elation  of  God's  will  was  limited  for  ages  to 
a  single  race,  and  every  thing  in  their  condition  was 
so  ordered  as  to  excite,  in  the  highest  possible  degi-ee, 


ISAIAH  53,  8.  243 

the  sense  of  want  and  tlie  correlative  desire  of  some- 
thing to  supply  it. 

As  the  time  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  drew 
near,  this  restless  expectation  reached  its  height.  From 
the  Jews  it  passed  over  to  the  Gentiles,  where  it  seems 
to  have  combined  with  a  collateral  tradition,  reaching 
back  to  the  first  periods  of  human  history,  and  both 
together  generating  in  the  palmiest  days  of  Homan 
domination,  a  pervading  apprehension  of  some  great 
event  or  personage  as  near  at  hand  :  a  state  of  feeling 
attested  both  by  Jewish  and  classical  historians.  This 
general  condition  of  the  public  mind  throughout  the 
Roman  empire,  at  the  very  acme  of  its  greatness,  and 
the  widest  sweep  of  its  victorious  yet  pacific  sway, 
was  nothing  more  than  an  extraordinary  and  simul- 
taneous exhibition  of  those  same  uneasy  movements 
of  the  mind  and  will  which  we  have  seen  to  be  ex- 
emplified, in  more  irregular  and  insulated  forms, 
throughout  all  nations  and  in  every  period  of  history. 
It  was  the  iiniate  consciousness  of  want,  and  the  ir- 
repressible desire  of  something  better  and  yet  un- 
possessed, subjected  to  new  stimulants,  and  brought, 
by  providential  means,  to  bear  upon  the  great  scheme 
of  human  renovation  and  advancement  which  was 
about  to  be  unrolled  by  the  hand  of  God  himself. 

This  scheme  possessed  in  the  highest  degree  every 
thing  which  we -have  seen  to  be  required  as  passports 
to  men's  confidence.  The  evil  which  it  undertook  to 
cure  was  the  greatest  in  itself,  and  the  cause  of  every 
other  ;  the  means  such  as  only  the  Divine  compassion 
could  have  brought  to  bear  upon  the  end  proposed ; 
and  this  end,  far  from  being  merely  negative,  or  lim- 


244  SERMONS. 

ited  to  freedom  from  existing  evils,  comprehended  the 
experience  and  possession  of  tlie  highest  good  con- 
ceivable, both  natural  and  moral.  Here  then  was  a 
ease  in  which  that  native  impulse  might  have  been 
expected  to  have  full  scope  and  activity. 

If  left  to  conjecture,  or  to  reason  from  analogy, 
how  natural  and  easy  to  imagine  the  eifect  of  this  stu- 
pendous revelation  on  the  hearts  and  lives  of  the 
expectant  nations.  As  all  eyes  had,  by  some  mys- 
terious influence,  been  turned  towards  the  spot  where 
the  deliverer  of  mankind  was  to  appear,  and  the  great 
men  and  wise  men  of  the  world,  no  less  than  the  vast 
mixed  multitude  around  them,  held  their  breath,  half 
in  hope  and  half  in  dread  of  the  event,  it  might  have 
been  imagined  that  when  He,  the  incarnate  Son  of 
God,  and  yet  the  man  of  sorrows  for  our  sake,  rose 
on  the  view  of  this  vast  amphitheatre  of  nations,  not 
as  a  gladiator  in  the  arena  of  Vespasian's  matchless 
structure,  for  the  amusement  of  the  world,  but  for  its 
ransom,  for  its  rescue  from  the  greatest  of  all  evils, 
and  indeed  from  all  the  evils  that  had  stained  or 
crushed  it  since  the  first  sin  was  committed — the  won- 
der, gratitude,  and  joy  of  the  spectators  would  have 
found  vent,  not  in  noisy  acclamations,  not  in  silent 
and  inactive  tears,  but  in  a  mighty  simultaneous  rush 
of  nations  towards  the  cross,  and  the  gushing  life- 
spring  which  flowed  from  it — a  unanimous,  enthusias- 
tic self-appropriation  of  this  heaven-descended  panacea 
for  all  pains,  this  inexhaustible  supply  of  all  necessi- 
ties, this  talisman  of  entrance  to  eternal  glory,  com- 
prehending in  itself  all  the  true,  and  superseding  all 
the  false  expedients  for  attaining  the  same  end,  by 


ISAIAH  53,  3.  '245 

which,  these  very  nations  had  again  and  again  been 
roused  to  frenzy,  and  excited  as  one  man  to  energetic 
but  insane  exertion.  Yes,  it  might  have  been  imag- 
ined that  the  men  who  had  been  thus  re -used  by  the 
false,  or  partial  and  inadequate  devices  of  philosophy, 
philanthropy,  or  practical  experience  of  j)lotting  craft 
or  soaring  ambition,  would  have  fallen  down  in  speech- 
less adoration  at  the  feet  of  Him,  invested  with  divine 
authority  and  power  to  do  what  men  and  angels  had 
essayed  in  vain. 

With  this  imagination,  natural  and  reasonable  as 
it  would  have  been  beforehand,  let  us  now  compare 
the  simple,  unexaggerated  fact  as  recorded  in  the  text 
by  the  prophetical  historian,  of  a  suffering  Messiah, 
"  He  was  despised  and  rejected  of  men,"  This  is  no 
hyperbole  or  oriental  figure  of  speech,  it  is  the  literal 
history  of  Christ's  reception  by  the  nations  ;  the  truth, 
the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  He  was 
despised  and  rejected.  He  for  whom  they  had  been 
waiting  with  an  eager  curiosity,  when  he  came  was 
despised  and  rejected  by  the  very  people  who  had 
hung  with  idiotic  faith  upon  the  lips  of  augurs,  py- 
thonesses, magi,  and  false  prophets.  Even  by  the 
Jews  themselves,  who  had  existed  as  a  nation  to  pre- 
pare for  his  appearance,  he  was  despised  and  rejected, 
i.  e.  by  the  masses  of  the  people ;  while  among  the 
Gentiles,  with  the  exception  of  the  chosen  few  who 
joined  with  the  elect  Jews  to  compose  the  Christian 
church,  the  exciting  anticipation  of  his  coming  was 
exchanged  for  bitter  spite,  or  frivolous  contempt,  or 
stupid  indifference,  and  they  who  were  too  wise  and 
too  refined  to  believe  the  record  God  had  given  of  his 


246  SERMONS. 

Son,  -went  back  to  their  oracles,  and  fanes,  and  mjfr 
teries,  to  the  filthy  rites  of  Venus  and  the  bloody  rites 
of  Moloch  "  as  the  dog  returns  to  his  own  vomit,  and 
the  sow  that  was  washed  to  her  wallowing  in  the 
mire." 

These  expressions  may  be  strong,  but  the  reality 
is  stronger,  and  the  utmost  license  in  the  use  of  lan- 
guage  would  fall  short  of  the  loathsome  folly  and  in- 
gratitude of  this  reception  given  to  God's  highest,  best, 
and  most  invaluable  gift.  Isor  was  it  a  mere  tem- 
j)orary  fit  of  madness,  an  ephemeral  delirium.  It  has 
lasted  ever  since  without  so  much  as  a  lucid  interval 
in  the  case  of  the  great  masses  of  mankind.  And 
never  has  this  scornful  rejection  of  an  offered  Saviour 
been  more  odious  in  its  spite,  or  more  pitiable  in  its 
senselessness,  than  at  the  times,  and  in  the  places, 
and  among  the  men,  where  the  natural  credulity,  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking,  and  the  practical  do- 
cility which  is  its  fruit,  were  most  conspicuously  man- 
ifest. 

These  darkened  glimpses  of  a  distant  past  may 
prepare  our  eyes  for  the  intenser  and  less  grateful  light 
of  times  and  places  nearer  to  ourselves.  Why  should 
we  talk  of  the  old  Romans  and  the  Jews,  of  the  Cru- 
saders and  the  medieval  generations,  when  we  have 
only  to  look  out  of  our  windows  to  behold  precisely 
the  same  spectacle,  the  same  susceptibility  of  strong 
impressions,  the  same  lively  hoi)e3  and  fears,  the  same 
credulity  or  easy  faith,  disposing  to  believe  the  most 
extravagant  inventions,  if  embellished  with  a  promise 
of  long  life,  or  boundless  wealth,  or  unstinted  fi'ee- 
dom ;  the  same  restless  inquiry  after  some  new  bait 


ISAIAH  53,  3.  24:7 

to  this  insatiable  apj  etite  ;  the  same  precipitation  in 
obeying  any  call  to  fresh  indulgence,  without  stopping 
to  compute  the  chances  or  to  count  the  cost ;  the  Same 
compassionate  Redeemer  knocking  at  the  door  of 
men's  hearts,  as  a  man  of  sorrows,  bruised  for  their 
iniquities,  entreating,  as  it  were,  for  leave  to  save 
them,  and  the  same  contemptuous  repulse.  As  this 
M'as,  in  prophecy,  a  constituted  token  of  the  true 
Messiah,  so  has  it  been  in  history,  and  still  is,  the  in- 
variable character  of  Christ's  reception  by  the  world, 
by  the  nations,  by  the  masses  of  mankind.  The  of- 
fence of  the  cross  has  not  ceased.  "  He  is  despised 
and  rejected  of  men." 

This  would  be  bad  enough  and  strange  enough, 
even  if  it  were  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  character 
and  conduct  of  mankind  in  general.  Even  if  men 
were  naturally  unsusceptible  of  strong  excitement  in 
relation  to  the  future,  even  if  it  were  hard  to  rouse 
tlieir  hopes  and  fears,  or  to  render  them  available  as 
means  of  practical  control ;  if  they  were  not  easily  im- 
posed upon  by  falsehood  or  exaggeration,  or  disposed 
to  act  without  sufficient  evidence  or  warrant,  it  would 
still  be  an  unspeakable  infatuation  to  refuse  to  believe 
or  act  on  God's  authority.  They  might  be  inaccessible 
to  dreams  of  wealth,  and  independence,  and  longevity, 
and  yet  be  chargeable  with  madness  in  rejecting  ever- 
lasting life.  But  how  shall  we  find  words  for  the  de- 
scription of  this  madness  when  tlie  ordinary  conduct 
of  mankind  is  all  the  other  way  ;  when  they  are  cred- 
ulous, and  tractable,  and  eagerly  precipitate  in  every 
thing  that  promises  to  better  their  condition  in  the 
present  life,  and  only  sceptical,  and  self-willed,  and 


248  SERMONS. 

refractory,  when  it  is  God  who  calls,  and  Christ  who 
pleads,  and  everlasting  life  or  death  that  is  at  stake  ! 
This  astonishing  exception  to  the  general  rule  of 
human  character  and  conduct  seems  to  call  for  ex- 
planation, and  the  Bible  gives  it.  The  secret  of  this 
startling  inconsistency  lies  in  the  simjple  but  humiliat- 
ing fact,  that  men  are  most  insensible  precisely  to  the 
greatest  evils  and  the  greatest  good.  This  is  a  part  of 
their  hereditary  curse.  "  Madness  is  in  their  heart 
while  they  live,  and  after  that  they  go  to  the  dead," 
to  be  forever  undeceived.  One  decisive  symptom 
of  this  madness  is,  that  it  regards  eternity  as  less  than 
time,  the  soul  as  inferior  to  the  body,  God  as  less  en 
titled  to  belief  than  man,  an  hour  of  animal  indul- 
gence more  attractive  than  all  heaven,  a  year  of 
bodily  privation  or  endurance  more  terrific  than  the 
gnawings  of  a  guilty  conscience,  and  the  fire  of  divine 
wrath  in  the  hottest  hell  forever.  I  am  speaking  now 
of  those  who  do  not  pretend  to  doubt  the  truth  of 
Christianity  or  to  dispute  the  authority  of  God,  but 
who  nevertlieless  act  in  direct  opposition  to  their  own 
avowed  convictions.  With  such  delusions,  why  at- 
tempt to  reason  ?  "  Madness  is  in  their  heart  while 
they  live,  and  after  that  they  go  to  the  dead." 

This  view  of  the  delusion,  under  which  the  whole 
race  naturally  labours,  casts  a  melancholy  light  upon 
the  actual  condition  of  the  world,  and  more  especially 
on  those  great  national  convulsions  which  are  contin- 
ually reaching  even  these  ends  of  the  earth  with  the 
prolonged  reverberation  of  their  noise,  and  the  sym- 
pathetic shock  of  their  concussions.  However  highly 
we  may  estimate  the  prize  for  which  the  nations  are 


ISAIAH  53,  3.  249 

contending,  liow  should  we  be  aifected  by  the  thoiiglit 
that  after  all,  these  struggling  masses  are  unconscious 
of  their  greatest  dangers,  and  unsuspicious  of  their 
deepest  degradation.  To  us  the  fearful  events  that 
are  now  passing,  seen  by  a  dim  light  at  so  vast  a  dis- 
tance, are  like  some  great  nocturnal  conflagration,  or 
some  scene  of  shipwreck;  and  to  one  who  takes  the 
view  which  I  have  just  presented,  most  of  the  actors 
in  this  fearful  drama  must  appear  like  men  enveloped 
in  the  flames,  or  sinking  in  the  waves  within  reach  of 
the  only  means  of  possible  escape,  yet  unaware  of  it, 
or  in  their  blindness  and  confusion  disregarding  it ; 
catching,  with  desperate  eagerness,  at  this  or  that  ex- 
pedient, only  to  relinquish  it  anon  or  to  perish  in  re- 
liance on  it,  when  a  single  step,  a  motion  of  the  hands, 
a  turning  of  the  body,  nay  a  look  or  a  word  of  admo- 
nition from  another,  might  ensure  their  safety. 

He  who  could  gaze  on  such  a  scene  in  real  life 
without  a  sickening  of  the  heart,  must  be  witliout  one 
altogether.  And  a  kindred  feeling  may  be  naturally 
stirred  by  the  sublime  but  awful  spectacle  of  burning 
empires  and  of  shipwrecked  nations.  As  in  the  case 
supposed,  however  distant  or  however  feeble,  the 
humane  spectator  would  experience  an  involuntary 
impulse  to  do  something,  to  hasten  towards  the  scene 
of  death,  to  shout  or  cry  aloud  in  warning ;  so  the 
man  who  looks  upon  contemporary  changes  in  the 
light  of  truth  and  of  eternity,  may  feel  an  irrepres- 
Bible  yearning  to  extend  a  helping  hand,  or  raise  a 
helping  voice  to  those  great  masses  now  in  violent  com- 
motion, and  too  soon  pcrliaps  to  be  baptized  in  blood, 
to  warn  them  that  there  is  a  worse  oppression  than  the 

vol,    II.  — 11* 


250  SERMONS. 

one  beneath  which  they  are  chafing,  and  a  nobler 
freedom  than  the  one  in  which  they  are  rejoicing,  tc 
divert  their  eyes  and  their  idolatrous  affections  from 
the  objects  of  their  overweening  trust — the  men  whom 
they  worship  as  their  national  deliverers — to  One  who 
is  a  Saviour  indeed,  a  deliverer  both  of  men  and  na- 
tions, but  whom,  in  common  with  their  enemies  and 
tyrants,  they  are  still  rejecting. 

To  a  mind  susceptible  of  such  impressions,  and 
capable  of  large  and  lofty  views  of  human  interests, 
as  well  as  open  to  the  calls  of  suffering  humanity,  the 
question  may  perhaps  present  itself  as  one  of  individ- 
ual duty.  What  can  Z  do  ?  what  shall  /  do  for  the 
remedy  of  this  great  evil  ?  I  will  answer  the  question, 
if  it  comes  from  one  who  is  himself  a  voluntary  sub- 
ject of  Christ's  kingdom.  I  say,  follow  your  leader 
into  the  thickest  of  the  fight,  into  the  hottest  of  the 
fire,  into  the  heart  of  the  deep  sea  if  need  be ;  do  what 
you  can  to  let  his  name  be  heard  and  his  victorious 
banner  seen  on  every  bloody  field,  on  every  wreck- 
strewed  sea  or  shore.  But  if,  alas,  you  are  yourself  an 
alien  from  the  very  Christ  whom  you  would  preach 
to  others,  then  my  answer  is,  remember  that  the  ocean 
is  made  up  of  drops,  and  all  societies  of  rational,  re- 
sponsible, personal  agents.  If  every  man  among  the 
masses  now  in  motion  on  the  surface  of  society,  like 
conflicting  icebergs  in  the  arctic  sea,  were  personally 
loyal  and  devoted  to  the  Saviour,  the  entire  mass 
could  not  despise  or  reject  him.  If  the  greater 
portion  were  thus  faithful,  the  controlling  influence 
in  nations  and  communities  must  be  a  good  one. 
Let  us  not  then  be  so  far  absorbed  in  the  condition 


ISAIAH  53,  3.  251 

of  the  mass  as  to  lose  siglit  of  its  constituent  ele- 
ments. 

For  a  moment  at  least,  insulate  yourself  from  the 
surrounding  mass  in  which  you  are,  perhaps,  too 
much  disposed  to  lose  sight  of  your  individuality,  and 
let  me  put  a  parting  question,  to  be  answered,  not  to 
me,  not  to  any  fellow-man,  but  to  your  conscience  and 
your  God.  "He  was  despised  and  rejected  of  men." 
Of  these  men  you  are  one  by  nature ;  are  you  still 
one  in  the  heat  of  your  affections  and  the  conduct  of 
your  life  ?  Are  you  still  one  of  those  by  whom  the 
offer  of  salvation  is  rejected  ?  Do  you  still  refuse  or 
delay  to  trust  him,  and  to  give  yourself  away  to  him? 
Ah,  then !  I  beseech  you,  think  no  longer  of  the  na- 
tions or  the  masses  who  reject  him.  Waste  not  your 
pity  on  mankind  in  general,  but  reserve  it  for  that 
one  deluded  heart,  which  in  the  midst  of  all  this  light 
and  all  this  mercy,  still  despises  and  rejects  the  Sa- 
viour. While  you  thus  bar  the  door  "of  your  own 
heart  against  him,  shed  not  the  tear  of  sentimental 
sorrow  over  his  exclusion  from  the  hearts  of  others, 
lest  he  turn  and — pointing  to  that  untried  future  which 
is  still  before  you — say  to  you  as  he  said  to  the  women 
who  lamented  him,  when  on  his  way  from  Gabbatha 
to  Golgotha,  from  the  judgment  seat  of  Pilate  to  the 
place  of  crucifixion,  "  Daughters  of  Jerusalem,  weep 
not  for  me,  but  for  yourselves  and  for  your  children." 


XIV. 

Hebuews  11,  10. — He  looked  for  a  city  which  hath  foundations, 
whose  builder  and  maker  is  God. 

These  words  refer  to  the  Patriarcli  Abraham,  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  characters  of  any  age- 
Without  going  into  his  biography  at  large,  let  me 
call  yonr  attention  to  two  circumstances,  which  espe- 
cially distinguished  this  great  man  from  others.  In 
the  first  place,  he  was  the  Friend  of  God.  I  mean 
not  merely  that  his  history  entitles  him  to  this  hon- 
ourable appellation ;  not  merely  that  God  treated  him 
and  looked  upon  him  as  his  friend  ;  but  that  he  is  ex- 
pressly called  the  Friend  of  God  in  Scripture.  By  the 
mouth  of  the  prophet  Isaiah,  the  Lord  said  to  Israel : 
"  Thou  art  my  servant,  Jacob  whom  I  have  chosen, 
the  seed  of  Abraham  my  friend." 

And  why  was  he  thus  honoured  ?  "Was  not  Abra- 
ham a  child  of  wrath  even  as  others  ?  Yes.  He  could 
not  therefore  be  entitled  meritoriously  to  the  distinc- 
tion which  this  name  implies.  No,  he  himself  well 
Vnew  that  it  was  not  for  any  merit  of  his  own,  that 
.>e  was  allowed  to  be  the  Friend  of  God.  On  the  con- 
-f  ary,  it  was  by  renouncing  all  dependence  on  himself 
bhat  he  acquired  this  honour.     Faith  was  his  grand 


HEBREWS  11,  10.  253 

distinction  ;  simple  reliance  on  the  word  of  God  ;  be- 
lief in  his  promises,  and  acquiescence  in  his  method 
of  salvation.  It  was  thus  that  Abraham  became  the 
friend  of  God.  But  was  not  this  a  meritorious  faith  ? 
Did  not  this  very  self-renunciation  and  reliance  upon 
God  entitle  Abraham  to  claim  his  favour  ?  It  would 
have  done  so,  but  for  this  simple  reason,  that  his  faith 
was  the  gift  of  God,  and  that  the  same  glorious  Being 
who  rewarded  him,  bestowed  upon  him  that  which 
was  rewarded.  AVhere  is  boasting  then?  It  is  ex- 
cluded. By  what  law  ?  The  law  of  works  ?  Nay, 
but  by  the  law  of  faith.  It  was  faith,  my  brethren, 
faith  that  rendered  Abraham  p^-e-eminently  great,  so 
great  as  to  be  called  the  Friend  of  God,  and  the 
Father  of  the  Faithful. 

This  is  the  second  honourable  title  which  I  pro- 
pose to  mention.  Abraham,  the  Friend  of  God,  was 
also  the  Father  of  the  Faithful.  Not,  as  the  Jews 
supposed,  the  Father  of  their  nation  merely.  This 
mistaken  notion  made  them  cry  out  in  reply  to  our 
Lord's  severe  reproofs,  "  We  have  Abraham  to  our 
father."  And  what  was  his  answer  ?  "  God  is  able  even 
of  these  stones  to  raise  up  children  unto  Abraham." 
Tliat  is  to  say,  though  all  Israel  should  fail,  Abraham 
n)idit  still  have  a  numerous  spiritual  seed  ;  and  God 
can  give  him  such  even  from  the  most  unexpected 
quarters,  the  most  unpromising  materials.  "While  the 
unbelieving  natural  descendants  of  Abraham  are  cast 
out,  the  degraded  heathen  can  be  put  into  their  place 
by  the  power  and  grace  of  God.  He  is  able,  even  of 
these  stones,  to  raise  up  children  unto  Abraham.  It 
was  not  of  Jews  then,  but  of  true  believers,  that  Abra- 


254  SERMONS. 

ham  was   tlie   spiritual   Father ;    the   Father  of  the 
Faithful. 

He  was  their  father,  first,  as  being  their  exemplar. 
He  is  held  up  as  a  model  of  strong  faith  to  all  believers, 
and  thej  who  follow  the  example  of  his  faith,  are  in 
that  respect  his  children.  In  this  sense  he  is  the  Fath- 
er of  the  Faithful.  But  he  is  also  the  Father  of  the 
Faithful,  because  the  promise  made  to  him  embraced 
all  believers  who  came  after  him.  The  condition  of  this 
promise  was  not  obedience  to  the  law,  but  faith  in  the 
gratuitous  mercy  of  God,  and  in  the  atoning  sacrifice 
of  Christ.  And  this  was  the  condition,  not  to  Abra- 
ham only,  but  to  his  spiritual  seed,  i.  e.,  to  all  who 
should  believe  as  he  believed.  "  For  the  promise  that 
he  should  be  the  heir  of  the  world,  was  not  to  Abra- 
ham, or  to  his  seed,  through  the  law,  but  through  the 
righteousness  of  faith."  As  one  of  the  contracting 
parties  in  this  gracious  covenant,  or  rather  as  the 
representative  of  those  to  whom  these  promises  were 
given,  Abraham  was  the  Father  of  the  Faithful. 

Passing  over  all  his  othdr  claims  to  high  distinc- 
tion your  memory  will  readily  suggest,  I  desire  you 
to  fix  your  eyes  on  these  two  titles  of  nobility  be- 
stowed upon  Abraham  in  the  word  of  God,  and  meas- 
uring his  rank  by  these,  to  take  into  consideration  a 
remarkable  fact  in  his  history  to  which  I  now  invite 
your  attention.  This  fact  is,  that  Abraham,  the 
Friend  of  God  and  the  Father  of  the  Faithful,  was  a 
homeless  man,  a  wanderer,  who  sojourned  in  the  land 
of  promise,  as  in  a  strange  country,  dwelling  in  tents 
like  an  Arab  or  a  Tartar.  This  feet,  though  not  inex- 
plicable, is  so  far  singular  as  to  deserve  our  particu 
lar  attention 


HEBREWS  11,  10.  255 

Wh}'-,  then,  was  Abraliam  a  wanderer,  a  homeless 
man,  a  sojourner  in  the  land  of  promise  ?  I  remark 
(1)  that  it  was  not  on  account  of  poverty.  In  the 
East,  indeed,  the  wandering  mode  of  life  is  not  in 
any  case  a  sign  of  poverty.  Powerful  chieftains  and 
whole  tribes  of  warriors  lead  such  a  life  from  choice, 
or  because  it  is  necessary  for  the  subsistence  of  their 
flocks  and  herds.  But  even  if  it  were  in  general  a 
criterion  of  poverty,  it  could  not  be  so  in  this  case. 
Abraham  was  rich — rich  by  inheritance — rich  by 
acquisition — rich  by  the  blessing  of  God  on  the  in- 
crease of  his  possessions — and  rich  through  the  favour 
of  the  kings  and  chiefs  whose  friendship  he  enjoyed. 
His  history  is  that  of  one  who  lived  in  ease  and 
affluence,  practising  the  characteristic  hospitality  of 
an  eastern  chief. 

2.  Was  it  then  because  he  had  no  real  estate,  no 
landed  property,  to  which  he  could  lay  claim,  and  on 
which  he  might  reside  ?  The  whole  land  of  Canaan 
was  in  one  sense  his  own.  It  was  his  by  express 
grant  from  Jehovah — made  sure  to  him  and  to  his 
heirs  forever.  It  is  true  that  when  he  needed  a  pos- 
session of  a  burial-place  he  bought  it  with  his  money 
of  the  children  of  Ileth.  But  this  was  a  part  of  that 
same  course  of  self-denial  and  forbearance  which 
is  now  in  question.  The  same  motive  that  made  him 
a  sojourner  and  wanderer,  led  him  to  loi  ego  his  riglits 
as  the  legitimate  owner  of  the  soil,  and  the  question 
still  arises  what  these  motives  were. 

3.  We  read  that  when  Abraham  first  crossed  the 
Jordan  from  the  east,  "  the  Canaanite  was  in  the 
land."     The  Ilivite,   the  Ilittite,   the  Jebusite,  the 


256  SERMONS. 

Amorite,  and  other  sons  of  Canaan,  had  possession  of 
the  country.  And  so  thickly  were  they  settled,  in 
the  central  part  at  least,  that  there  was  not  room  for 
Abraham  and  Lot  to  live  together.  May  it  not  be, 
therefore,  that  these  actual  possessors  of  the  country 
would  not  suffer  him  to  dwell  among  them?  Had 
they  known  his  pretensions,  or,  to  speak  more  prop- 
erly, his  rights,  they  might  have  hated  him  and  driven 
him  away.  But  as  he  made  no  efforts  to  enforce  those 
rights,  nor  even  to  assert  them ;  and  as  he  came 
among  them  from  the  east  with  flocks  and  herds,  and 
as  an  independent  chieftain,  they  received  him  with 
respect,  and  this  respect  increased. 

It  is,  indeed,  an  interesting  feature  in  the  history 
of  Abraham's  expatriation,  that  in  Egypt,  in  Philistia, 
and  in  Canaan,  he  was  treated  by  the  natives,  not 
only  as  a  man  respectable  for  wealth  and  power,  but 
as  a  Prince,  a  "Prince  of  God,"  and  as  a  Prophet,  one 
who  held  immediate  intercourse  with  God,  and  was 
an  interpreter  of  the  divine  will.  In  these  characters 
he  was  known  and  reverenced  by  the  heathen  who 
surrounded  him  ;  and  except  in  th.e  case  of  the  attack 
on  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  by  the  "  confederated  kings," 
all  his  relations  with  the  Canaanites  were  amicable. 
And  in  the  only  case  wdiere  he  applied  for  land,  it 
was  granted  by  the  Ilittites  in  a  manner  most  cour- 
teous and  cordial.  It  was  not,  therefore,  on  account 
of  any  enmity  between  him  and  the  Canaanites,  that, 
instead  of  founding  or  accepting  a  great  city,  he  pre- 
ferred to  live  a  wandering  and  what  we  would  call  a 
homeless  life.  There  must  be  other  reasons  for  his 
course. 


HEBREWS  11,  10.  257 

4.  Since  then  it  was  neither  poverty,  nor  the  want 
of  land,  nor  opposition  on  the  part  of  its  possessors, 
that  deterred  him  from  inliabiting  a  city,  or,  at  least, 
from  leading  a  more  settled  life,  it  may  be  suggested, 
that  his  perseverance  in  a  wandering  course,  shows 
him  to  have  been  a  mere  barbarian,  one  who  was 
unable  to  appreciate  the  comforts  of  a  settled  life,  or 
rather,  who  had  never  had  experience  of  them.  Thus 
we  find  that  in  Arabia  tiiere  are  tribes  of  Bedouins 
wlio  regard  their  wandering  life  as  tlie  most  honoura- 
ble possible,  and  laugh  to  scorn  those  pleasures  and 
advantages  of  civilized  society  about  which  they  know 
nothing  by  experience.  But  let  it  be  observed  that 
these. tribes  inhabit  the  Arabian  desert,  where  culti- 
vation exists  only  in  detached  spots,  and  where  the 
herdsman  is  obliged  to  change  his  pasture-ground  and 
home  continually. 

Abraham,  on  the  other  hand,  was  in  a  fertile,  cul- 
tivated, thickly  settled  country,  full  of  proud  cities, 
walled  towns  of  inferior  size,  and  villages  iimumera- 
ble.  There  is  strong  reason  to  believe  tliat  the  Ca- 
naanites  who  were  then  in  the  land,  had  reached  a 
pretty  high  degree  of  civilization.  Scanty  as  our  in- 
formation is  about  them,  there  are  incidental  indica- 
tions of  improvement  which  are  not  to  be  mistaken. 
But  even  supposing  that  they  were  barbarians,  it 
does  not  follow  that  Abraham  was  also  one.  Coming 
as  he  did  from  that  part  of  the  globe  which  seems  to 
have  been  first  settled  after  the  flood — from  a  coun- 
try, which  in  later  times,  claimed,  and  was  allowed 
to  be,  the  cradle  of  knowledge  by  the  heathen  world, 
.it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  he  was  a  barbarian.    The 


258  SERMONS. 

mere  possession  of  the  true  religion,  wonld  have  had, 
in  this  as  well  as  other  cases,  a  refining  influence. 
No,  he  was  no  barbarian.  It  was  not  because  he 
knew  no  better  that  he  chose  to  sojourn  as  a  stranger 
in  the  land  of  promise — to  dwell  in  tents  instead  of 
houses — and  to  govern  an  encampment,  not  a  city  or 
a  kingdom. 

5.  AVas  it  then  because  he  thought  it  wrong  to  lead 
a  settled  life  in  towns  and  cities,  that  he  dwelt  in 
tents  ?  There  is  no  trace  of  such  a  doctrine  in  the 
word  of  God,  and  Abraham  was  too  well  grounded  in 
the  divine  will,  to  hold  it  as  a  superstition.  He  was 
no  ascetic.  His  mode  of  life,  as  I  have  said  alread}'-, 
was  a  generous  one,  without  fanatical  antipathies — 
without  the  practice  of  monastic  austerities  or  the 
will-worship  of  self-inflicted  mortifications.  It  w^as 
not  because  he  looked  upon  a  settled  life  and  civiliza- 
tion as  sinful,  that  he  was  willing  to  relinquish  them. 
What  then  was  his  motive  ? 

6.  To  some  the  thought  may  here  occur,  that  we 
are  searching  for  the  explanation  of  a  fact  which 
needs  none.  Why  should  Abraham's  wandering  be 
considered  stranger  than  tlie  wandering  of  any  other 
eastern  Chief?  And  as  those  of  the  highest  rank  lead 
such  a  life  to  this  day,  it  need  not  be  regarded  as  be- 
low the  dignity  even  of  the  Father  of  the  Faithful  and 
the  Friend  of  God.  He  came  into  the  country  with 
his  flocks  and  herds  ;  and  as  the  land  was  densely 
peopled,  he  was  under  the  necessity  of  frequently 
changing  his  encampment  and  his  pasture.  This 
would  be  wholly  satisfactory,  but  for  the  Apostle's 
mention  of  the   patriarch's  unsettled   Hfe,  as   a  re- 


HEBREWS  11,  10.  259 

raarkable  evidence  of  faith.  If  it  arose  merely  from 
the  nature  of  his  ^^roperty,  and  in  fact  contributed  to 
his  convenience  and  increase  in  wealth,  it  would 
hardly  have  been  said  of  him,  that  "  by  faith  he  so- 
journed in  the  land  of  promise  as  in  a  strange  country, 
dwelling  in  tents  with  Isaac  and  Jacob,  the  heirs  of 
him  of  the  same  promise."  We  are,  therefore,  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  his  motive  for  pursuing  such  a 
course,  was  very  different  from  that  which  leads  the 
ordinary  herdsmen  of  the  east  to  shift  from  place  to 
place,  and  to  live  and  die  beneath  a  roof  of  camel's 
hair  or  goatskins. 

7.  Having  thus  determined  negatively,  that  it  was 
neither  poverty,  nor  want  of  title  to  the  land,  nor  op- 
position on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants,  nor  ignorance, 
nor  mere  ascetic  self-denial,  nor  a  regard  to  temporal 
convenience  that  induced  him  to  reside  in  tents, 
rather  than  in  a  palace  and  a  city  worthy  of  so  great 
a  prince,  we  are  ready  to  receive  the  explanation  of 
the  text,  which  is  this,  "  he  looked"  or  was  looking 
"  for  a  city."  There  is  an  ambiguity  in  the  English 
version  which  is  not  in  the  original.  "  To  look  for," 
in  modern  English,  means  to  search  for  or  to  seek. 
In  the  English  of  our  Bible,  where  the  phrase  is  not 
uncommon,  it  means  simply  to  expect.  The  sense 
then,  is  not  that  Abraham  was  wandering  in  search 
of  a  city  npon  earth,  but  that  he  lived  in  quiet  ex- 
pectation of  a  city.  "  If  we  hope  for  that  we  see  not, 
then  do  we  with  patience  wait  for  it."  It  was  this 
"patience  of  hope"  that  rendered  Abraham  indif- 
ferent to  the  walled  cities  of  the  Canaanites  around 
him,  whose  antiquity  was  of  ancient  days,  and  whose 


260  SERMONS. 

defence  was  the  munition  of  rocks.  IsTotliing  bo 
effectually  breeds  indifference  to  present  objects,  as 
the  hope  of  better  things  to  come.  The  ti-aveller  press- 
ing homewards  after  a  long  absence,  can  pass,  with  a 
contemptuous  smile,  or  absolute  unconsciousness, 
those  very  objects  which  the  homeless  traveller  dwells 
upon  with  rapture.  As  the  venerable  patriarch  jour- 
neyed from  Dan  to  Beersheba,  passing  among  the 
cities  and  domains  of  the  Canaanites,  we  may  imagine 
that  we  saw  him  looking  ever  and  anon  beyond  these 
objects  to  one  more  remote,  and  losing  sight  of  Kir- 
iath-Arba  and  Jebus,  since  called  Hebron  and 
Jerusalem,  with  their  tall  towers  and  heaven-scaling 
Avails,  amidst  the  loftier  battlements  and  turrets  of 
that  real  yet  ideal  city,  towards  which  he  was  jour- 
neying.    "  He  looked  for  a  city." 

8.  And  what  sort  of  a  city  did  he  look  for,  in  con- 
tempt of  those  around  him  ?  How  did  the  city  of  his 
expectations  differ  from  the  cities  of  the  Canaanites 
and  the  Philistines,  from  old  Damascus,  and  from  Ur 
of  the  Chaldees?  It  had  foundations.  "He  looked 
for  a  city  which  hath  foundations."  And  had  not 
they  foundations  ?  In  one  sense,  they  had  none.  They 
were  liable  to  change.  In  the  same  sense,  Abraham's 
city,  which  he  looked  for,  had  foundations,  has  them 
now  ;  for  observe  the  present  form  of  the  expression. 
It  was  a  city,  therefore,  not  of  this  world  ;  for  in  this 
world  there  are  no  foundations  time-proof.  And 
whence  had  the  city  of  his  hopes  these  Urm  founda- 
tions ?     From  the  Architect. 

9.  Whose  builder  and  maker  is  God?  God  does 
not  build  like  man.     The  foundations  of  his  structures 


HEBREWS  11,  10.       ■  261 

are  laid  deep  in  his  decrees,  and  the  cement  has  been 
growing  hard  from  all  eternity.  His  power  over  the 
materials  he  uses,  is  not  merely  the  disposing  power 
of  a  builder,  but  the  absolute  power  of  a  maker.  "What 
he  builds  he  creates.  The  city  of  which  he  is  the 
maker  and  builder,  is  eternal :  it  has  foundations 
which  decay  can  never  weaken,  and  which  laugh  at 
the  violence  of  storm  and  earthquake.  Abraham 
lived  in  expectation  of  a  city  which  wae  not  of  this 
world.  It  was  what  we  call  heaven,  in  the  highest 
sense,  the  residence  prepared  by  God  for  his  true  fol- 
lowers after  death — a  faithful  city  in -which  dwelleth 
righteousness,  the  new  Jerusalem  which  John  beheld 
in  vision.  It  is  a  city  which  has  no  need  of  the 
sun,  neither  of  the  moon,  to  shine  in  it;  for  the  glory 
of  God  lightens  it,  and  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof. 
And  who  are  its  inhabitants  ?  "  The  nations  of 
them  which  are  saved  shall  walk  in  the  light  of  it, 
and  the  kings  of  the  earth  bring  their  glory  and 
honour  into  it.  And  the  gates  of  it  shall  not  be  shut 
at  all  by  day ;  for  there  shall  be  no  night  there.  And 
they  shall  bring  the  glory  and  the  honour  of  the  na- 
tions into  it."  And  are  none  to  be  excluded  ?  Ah, 
yes !  "There  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  it  any  thing 
that  defilcth,  neither  whatsoever  worketh  abomination 
or  maketh  a  lie  :  but  they  which  are  written  in  the 
Lamb's  book  of  life."  And  no  names  are  found  there 
but  the  names  of  those  who  wash  their  robes  and 
make  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb.  This  is 
the  grand  distinction  of  the  city  for  which  Abraham 
looked.  It  is  a  city  free  from  sin.  In  this  it  diflers 
from  all  earthly  cities.     It  is  hard  to  conceive  of  one 


262  '  SERMONS. 

of  our  great  cities  without  the  associated  images  of 
filth,  riot,  drunkenness,  debauchery,  and  wretched- 
ness. But  if  we  ever  reach  the  city  of  Abraham,  and 
rest  upon  his  bosom  at  its  sumptuous  feasts,  we  shall 
know  how  to  separate  these  hateful  concomitants  from 
our  conceptions  of  a  city. 

And  why  is  it  called  a  city?  Because  with  a  city 
we  associate  ideas  of  substantial  strength,  inimense 
wealth,  regular  government,  social  intercourse,  refine- 
ment of  manners,  and  external  splendour.  But  what 
are  all  these,  in  the  cities  of  the  earth,  to  the  surpass- 
ing glories  of  that  city  for  which  Abraham  looked, 
and  where  the  saints  shall  be  enthroned  as  kings  and 
priests  unto  God  ?  Iso  wonder,  then,  that  Abraham, 
forgetting  things  around  him,  looked  for  a  city  which 
hath  foundations,  whose  builder  and  maker  is  God. 

10.  Here,  then,  we  begin  to  see  a  marked  resem- 
blance between  his  case  and  our  own.  However  for- 
eign and  remote  from  our  experience,  what  has  liith- 
erto  been  said  of  his  condition,  at  last  we  are  alike, 
we  ai*e  all  sojourners  and  strangers  upon  earth,  we 
seek  the  same  city  as  the  Patriarch.  However  well 
we  may  be  pleased  with  it,  however  fully  satisfied 
with  what  it  can  afford,  we  know  that  our  abode  in  it 
is  onlj'-  for  a  time :  it  is  not  the  place  of  our  rest. 
And  of  this  we  are  receiving  constant  admonitions. 
If  man's  relations  to  his  fellow-man  remained  unal- 
tered during  the  present  life,  he  might  be  tempted  to 
believe  that  this  was  his  final  resting-place.  But 
Providence  has  left  no  room  for  such  an  illusion.  The 
cords  that  bind  us  to  the  world  are  breaking  one  after 
another,  and  the  very  ground  on  which  we  stand  seems 


HEBREWS  11,  10.  263 

to  slide  away  from  under  us ;  so  tliat,  in  middle  life 
and  old  age,  we  appear  to  tread  no  longer  the  green 
and  smiling  earth  we  trod  in  childhood.  We  have 
within  us  also  abundant  indications  that  we  are  mere 
sojourners.  The  sense  of  a  hereafter,  the  instinctive 
stretching  of  the  thoughts  towards  it,  teach  us  the 
same  lesson  ;  while  the  voice  of  conscience  sometimes 
shrieks,  and  sometimes  Avhispers,  Arise  and  depart 
hence  :  this  is  not  your  rest.  You  may,  perhaps,  have 
heaped  up  wealth,  and  used  various  methods,  in  order 
to  persuade  yourself  that  you  are  here  at  home,  and 
you  may  be  ready  to  exclaim.  What,  am  I  a  mere  so- 
journer, surrounded  as  I  am  by  all  this  permanent 
prosperity?  You  are  like  a  man  u2)on  a  journey 
homeward,  who  should  tarry  at  a  wayside  inn,  and 
expend  his  time  and  money  in  furnishing  and  decking 
his  temporary  lodghigs.  And  do  you  not  at  times 
feel  yourself  that  it  is  so  ?  Have  3'ou  not  often  an  un- 
easy sense  of  present  insecurity  and  approaching 
change  ?  And  is  not  this  sufficient  to  obscure  the 
brightness  of  your  precious  metals,  and  to  impair  the 
verdure  of  your  jjleasant  fields?  And  you,  O  men  of 
pleasure,  have  not  you  the  same  experience  ?  In  the 
midst  of  your  exciting  and  degrading  pastimes,  have 
you  not  paroxysms  of  alarm  and  restlessness  ?  Amidst 
your  voluntary  madness,  liave  you  not  your  lucid  in- 
tervals, in  which  you  feel  you  are  mere  sojourners  in 
a  foreign  country  ?  All  feel  it ;  all  know,  though  all 
will  not  allow  themselves  to  act  as  if  they  knew  that 
they  are  not  at  home,  and  that  a  journey  is  before 
them. 

11.  Now,  this  feeling  of  uneasiness,  this  sense  of 


264  SEKMONS. 

homelessness,  is,  as  jou  well  know,  incompatible  with 
happiness.  In  order  to  be  happy,  you  must  have  a 
home,  either  present  or  in  prospect.  Have  yon  such 
a  home  ?  Remember  that  earthly  homes,  in  reference 
to  eternity,  are  nothing  worth.  Look  at  the  house- 
holds breaking  up  around  you,  and  say  whether  these 
can  be  your  solace  and  your  stay  forever.  "What  will 
you  do  then  ?  Will  you  waste  yourselves  in  misan- 
thropic discontent?  No!  do  as  Abraham  did:  look 
forward  to  the  city  which  hath  foundations,  whose 
builder  and  maker  is  God.  The  more  unsatisfactory 
you  find  this  world,  look  the  more  eagerly  and  stead- 
fastly on  that  which  is  to  come.  Are  you  jnst  begin- 
ning life,  and  have  you,  as  yet,  experienced  no  vicis- 
situdes ?  Oh,  then,  be  wise  beforehand.  Do  not  wait 
till  your  heart  is  sickened  and  your  temper  soured  by 
disappointment.  But  now,  when  your  feelings  are 
elastic,  and  your  alFections  ardent,  even  now,  look  for 
a  city  which  hath  foundations,  whose  builder  and. 
maker  is  God. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  experience  has  taught  you 
the  treacherous  hollowness  of  sinful  pleasures,  and 
yonr  heart  is  almost  breaking  with  defeated  hopes, 
unsatisfied  desires,  and  a  sense  of  want,  then  have  you 
the  less  excuse  for  looking  any  longer  at  those  objects 
which  you  have  already  proved  and  found  unsatisfac- 
tory. Oh,  begin  at  last  to  look  away  from  this  world, 
with  its  cloud-capped  towers  and  gorgeous  palaces — 
look  away  from  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision,  to  a 
city  which  hath  foundations,  whose  builder  and  maker 
is  God. 

12.  But  here  let  us  guard  against  a  fatal  error — • 


HEBREWS  11,  10.  265 

the  error  of  imagining  that  mere  expectation  is  alone 
required.  Believe  me,  multitudes  have  looked  for 
that  city  who  have  never  reached  it.  There  is  but 
one  path  to  it  through  the  wilderness  of  life,  and  that 
path  is  a  narrow  one.  It  was  by  that  path  that  the 
Father  of  the  Faithful  gained  the  object  of  his  faitli 
and  hope.  If  you  would  gain  it  likewise,  you  must 
walk  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Friend  of  God.  Do  you 
ask  what  path  he  travelled  ?  I  reply,  the  path  of 
humble,  childlike  faith.  We  know  from  the  life 
of  Christ  himself,  that  Abraham  desired  to  see  his 
day,  and  saw  it,  and  was  glad.  It  was  fiiith  in 
God's  mercy,  and  that  was  counted  to  him  for  right- 
eousness. It  was  a  firm  belief  that  God  would  set 
forth  a  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  men,  and  a  hearty 
acceptance  of  the  pardon  thus  provided  for  himself. 

These  are  the  footsteps  of  the  Father  of  the  Faith- 
ful. If  then  you  are  merely  looking  forward  to  the 
happiness  of  heaven,  without  knowing  or  caring  how 
it  is  to  be  obtained,  learn  from  the  example  of  Abra- 
ham, that  you  must  renounce  all  sin  and  self  reliance, 
and  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  for  the  salvation  of  your 
souls,  if  you  would  look,  with  any  well-grounded  hope, 
for  a  city  which  hath  foundations,  whose  builder  and 
maker  is  God. 

13.  And  now  let  me  turn  to  you  who  have  your 
faces  turned  to  Zion,  and  arc  already  looking  for  that 
city  to  which  Abraham  aspired,  and  where  he  reigns 
n  glory.  It  is  said  that  when  the  caravan  of  pilgrims 
to  the  sepulchre  of  Christ  cross  the  mountains  of 
Judea,  worn  with  hunger  and  fatigue,  they  are  some- 
times ready  to  relax  their  efforts  and  .lespair  of  safe 

VOL.  11. — 12 


266  SERMONS. 

arriA'al.  They  may  even  repent  of  their  own  folly  in 
attempting  so  adventui-ous  a  journey,  and  wish  them- 
selves in  safety  at  their  own  distant  firesides.  But 
these  thoughts  all  vanish  when  the  summit  is  attained, 
and  from  the  mountain's  brow,  they  catch  a  glimpse 
of  Olivet  and  Zion,  and  the  Forsaken  Citj-  seated  in 
her  widow's  weeds  upon  her  throne  of  hills.  That 
sight  ]-eani mates  their  courage  and  renews  their 
strength.  With  simultaneous  energy  they  rise  and 
hasten  onward,  and  the  roughness  of  the  journey  is 
forgotten  in  the  presence  of  Jerusalem.  Oh,  bretli- 
ren,  we  are  also  strangers  and  pilgrims,  and  our  way 
through  the  world  may  be  precipitous  and  rugged, 
and  so  long  as  we  look  only  at  the  things  around  us, 
our  hearts  may  well  grow  faint  and  our  knees  feeble. 
But  amidst  these  trials  and  discouragements,  look  up- 
ward to  the  heavenly  hills,  and  through  the  dust  and 
smoke  of  this  world's  troubles,  keep  the  Eternal  City 
steadfastly  in  view.  That  sight  will  make  your  hearts 
beat  with  new  vigor.  It  will  nerve  your  arm  for  bat- 
tle and  your  bosom  for  resistance.  It  will  enable  you 
to  look  down  with  contempt  upon  the  pleasures  and 
temptations  of  the  world ;  it  will  preserve  jon  from 
illusions,  painful  even  to  the  Christian,  and  ah  !  how 
often  fatal  to  the  unbeliever.  With  such  illusions, 
we  may  rest  assured  the  world,  the  church,  the  ex- 
perience and  the  souls  of  men  are  ever  teeming. 

Upon  one  or  two  such,  I  may  dwell  for  a  moment 
in  conclusion.  If  the  scenes  which  I  describe  are  but 
ideal,  they  may  serve,  at  least,  as  types  of  a  most 
solemn  realit}'".  Let  us  imagine  that  we  see  one  stand- 
ing, even  now,  upon  an  eminence,  a  rising  ground 


I 


HEBREWS  n,  10.  267 

ill  life,  and  looking  forwards.  lie  sees  nothing  bnt 
green  lields  and  waving  forests — all  is  fresh  and  all 
is  srailino; — an  nnrutfled  stream  of  pleasure  rolls 
through  his  imaginary  landscape,  and  the  distinctions 
which  he  hopes  for,  rise  like  mountains  in  the  dis- 
tance. Upon  these  delightful  and  inspiring  objects 
his  eye  rests  ajid  feeds.  He  has  no  desire  to  look  be- 
yond them.  At  times,  indeed,  he  may  catch  a  mo- 
mentary glimpse  of  something  bright,  and  towering 
above  the  highest  of  the  heights  before  him.  Some- 
times, when  the  sun  breaks  out  with  sudden  splendour 
from  behind  a  cloud,  it  seems  to  be  reflected,  for  an 
instant,  from  a  thousand  glittering  points;  as  though 
there  were  a  city  in  the  sky.  But  in  a  moment  it  is  gone, 
and  he  forgets  it,  or  congratulates  himself  that  he  is 
no  enthusiast,  to  give  up  the  real  and  substantial 
splendours  of  the  scene  before  him  in  exchange  for 
cloud-built  palaces  and  castles  in  the  air. 

This  proud  reflection  brings  him  back,  with  new 
complacency,  to  the  Elysian  fields  which  lie  before 
him,  and  he  drinks  in  with  new  pleasure  the  delight- 
ful sights  and  sounds  presented  to  his  senses.  Xo 
wonder  then  that  he  refuses  to  listen,  or  listens  only 
with  incredulous  contempt,  to  the  fanatic  who  would 
tell  him  that  this  fairy  prospect  is  a  cheat,  a  mere 
illusion — that  its  colours  fade  and  its  music  ceases, 
on  a  near  approach,  and  that  the  city  in  the  clouds, 
which  he  supposed  he  saw,  is  not  only  real,  but  the 
only  refuge  from  approaching  dangers.  He  turns 
with  pity  or  disgust  from  such  forebodings,  and  then 
passes  on,  until  he  stands  upon  the  verge  of  the 
eminence  from  which  he  has  been  gazing.     He  looks 


268  SERMONS. 

down  into  tlie  valley,  and  beholds  with  fresh  delight, 
its  verdure  and  its  fruits — its  sunshine  and  its  shade. 
He  envies  the  retirement  of  its  peaceful  hamlets,  and 
listens  with  awe.  to  the  distant  murmur  of  its  populous 
cities.  All  seems  delightful — all  substantial — and 
above  all,  near  at  hand. 

Enchanted  with  the  prospect,  he  contemplatively 
lifts  his  eyes  to  yonder  dim  horizon,  as  if  to  satisfy 
himself  that  there  is  nothing  there  to  lure  him  on- 
ward. And  nothing  does  he  see  but  fleecy  clouds,  or 
"  the  body  of  tlie  heavens  in  its  clearness."  Or  if  he 
does  for  an  instant  see  again  that  strange  unearthly 
gleam,  and  catch  a  faint  sound  like  the  dying  swell 
of  distant  music,  the  flash  is  transient,  and  the  sound 
no  sooner  heard  than  it  is  hushed.  He  pauses  for  a 
moment  at  the  point  where  the  upward  and  the  doAvn- 
ward  paths  diverge  ;  he  looks  up  the  narrow  winding 
way  into  the  mountains,  and  then  plunges  into  that 
which  leads  him  gently  down  through  groves  and 
gardens  into  the  deep  valley.  Once  and  again  he 
may  stand  still  to  listen  as  a  voice  of  warning  comes 
again  upon  his  ear.  But  his  election  has  been  made. 
He  passes  downward  and  still  downward,  guided  by 
the  hum  of  distant  voices,  and  the  gentle  rush  of  water 
far  below.  He  observes  with  surprise  that  as  he 
passes  on,  the  distant  prospect  still  seems  bright  and 
beautiful,  but  objects  near  at  hand  have  no  such 
charms.  However  far  he  journeys,  the  green  fields 
are  still  as  far  oif  as  at  first ;  the  fields  around  him 
appear  parched  and  barren.  Flowers  are  in  the  dis- 
tance, but  at  hand  are  thorns  and  briers.  Gardens 
like  that  of  the  Hesperides  are  yonder,  but  here  a 


HEBREWS  11,  10.  260 

garden  like  tliat  of  the  sluggard,  ful  of  weeds  and  un- 
enclosed, lie  begins  to  imagine  that  all  nature  droops 
and  fades  at  his  approach.  The  grass  seems  to  wither 
where  his  footsteps  fall ;  his  breath  seems  to  poison 
vegetation  and  the  atmosphere,  Tlie  healthful  airs  of 
heaven  become  hot  winds  of  the  desert  when  they 
touch  his  cheek  ;  and  the  glassy  streams  which  were 
to  slake  his  thirst  dry  up  as  he  bends  over  them,  and 
leave  a  putrid  slime  in  their  forsaken  channels.  The 
birds  whose  song  allured  him,  become  owls  or  vul- 
tures, or  drop  lifeless  from  the  branches.  Hamlets 
and  cities  turn  to  rocks  and  sandhills  ;  and  the  shadow- 
ing trees,  now  leafless,  leave  his  head  exposed  to 
sorching  rays  from  an  unclouded  sun.  As  he  looks 
up  to  tell  him  how  he  hates  his  beams,  his  torment  is 
enhanced  by  another  passing  glimpse  of  that  myste- 
rious city  in  the  clouds  above  the  mountain  tops,  and 
another  dying  echo  of  its  music.  In  despairing  spite 
he  stops  his  ears  and  hastens  onwards,  and  the  heat 
soon  grows  more  tolerable,  for  the  sun  is  hidden  and 
the  sky  is  overcast.  Winds  begin  to  howl  and  whis- 
tle ;  thunders  mutter  angrily,  and  a  thousand  echoes 
from  the  hills  around  proclaim  the  coming  tempest. 
The  very  earth  beneath  him  quakes,  and  the  illusions 
of  the  fairy  landscape  cease,  and  cease  for  ever.  All, 
all  is  desolate,  not  even  a  shelter  from  the  drivmg  rain. 
The  traveller  looks  desperately  around  for  refuge 
from  the  storms  of  life,  and  then  madly  plunges  into 
some  dark  cavern  of  pre-eminent  iniquity  ;  and  now 
unable  to  arrest  his  progress,  passes  furiously  onwards 
in  the  midst  of  darkness  and  strange  noises,  till  he 
Buddenly  comes  forth  into  the  light  of  day  upon  the 


270  SERMONS. 

margin  of  a  precipice.  "Witli  coiiTulsive  energy  he 
pauses  on  the  brink ;  for  nature  sickens  at  the  iiiilf 
below,  and  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  gives  him 
strength  to  stop,  but  only  for  a  moment.  The  im- 
pulse of  his  downward  progress  is  too  strong  to  be  re- 
sisted, and  a  fierce  wind  from  behind  still  pursues  him. 
Forced  to  look  down,  his  brain  begins  to  swim  ;  he 
loses  his  balance ;  he  falls  in ;  he  sinks ;  he  catches 
with  the  strength  of  desperation  at  a  twig  or  a  pro- 
jecting point,  and  looks  up  from  the  mouth  of  that 
devouring  chasm  with  a  piercing  shriek  for  mercy. 
And  in  that  last,  dying,  and  despairing  upward  look, 
he  is  entirely  and  forever  undeceived.  He  knows 
what  he  has  done,  and  oh,  unutterable  anguish !  lie 
knows  to  a  degree  which  plants  a  thousand  daggers 
in  his  dying  soul,  he  knows  what  he  has  lost.  For 
there,  far  above  him,  at  the  end  of  the  narrow  path 
which  he  despises,  is  the  city  in  the  sky  which  he  had 
learned  to  laugh  at  as  a  baseless  vision.  But  he  sees 
it  no  longer  as  a  shadowy  pile  of  clouds.  Its  walls 
and  battlements  are  of  adamant ;  its  deep  founda- 
tions reach  beyond  the  view  of  the  lost  sinner,  as  lie 
loses  his  last  hold  upon  the  upper  world,  and  after 
imavailing  and  convulsive  struggles,  sinks,  sinks,  like 
lead  in  the  mighty  waters,  his  eye  still  fixed  upon 
that  city  with  foundations,  whose  builder  and  maker 
is  God,  until  it  is  withdrawn  to  be  fixed  forever  upon 
sights,  which,  God  forbid  that  you  or  I  should  ever  see. 
Let  me  for  one  moment  shift  the  scene,  and  show 
you  another  instance  of  illusion  equally  powerful, 
but  oh  how  different  in  its  nature  and  its  end  !  Let 
me  show  yni  a  small  company  of  pilgrims,  who  have 


HEBREWS  11,  10.  271 

chosen  the  rough,  narrow,  upward  path  which  leads 
away  from  the  green  valley  into  the  recesses  of  the 
bleak  and  barren  mountains.  Some  you  might  see 
passing  onwards  with  alacrity,  forgetting  all  below 
them  and  behind  them,  or  remembering  it  only  to  ac- 
celerate their  progress  towards  that  city  with  founda- 
tions, upon  which  their  eyes  are  fastened.  It  is  not 
of  these  that  I  would  speak. 

Others  I  might  show  you  pressing  on  m  the  same 
course  as  long  as  sunshine  lasts,  or  moonlight  gilds 
the  pinnacles  of  yonder  city  ;  out  when  black  clouds 
hide  the  sky,  and  thick  mists  veil  the  earth,  they  avert 
their  faces,  they  begin  to  linger,  and  to  cast  a  longing 
glance  into  the  depth  below  them,  where  the  world 
and  its  temptations  are  arrayed  in  fatal  splendour, 
and  from  which  the  voice  of  mirth  and  business  con- 
stantly ascends,  until  sooner  or  later  they  hang  over 
the  edge  with  too  intense  a  curiosity,  and  what  fol- 
lows is  only  known  by  the  sound  of  a  heavy  plunge 
ill  some  depth  below. 

But  it  is  not  of  these  that  I  would  speak.  It  is  of 
one  who  neither  lingers  nor  looks  back,  nor  gazes 
down  into  the  valley,  but  whose  face  is  still  turned 
Zionward,  whose  ])rogress  though  now  faster  and  now 
slower  is  perceptible  and  constant.  I  wish  to  show 
you  one  who,  while  he  thus  moves  onward  in  the 
right  direction,  is  no  less  the  subject  of  illusion  than 
the  wretch  whose  end  I  have  described  to  you. 

He  journeys  towards  the  heavenly  city,  but  he 
gees  it  not.  Jerusalem  is  in  his  heart,  but  not  before 
his  eyes.  He  even  dreams  that  he  has  taken  the 
wrong  path.     Imagination  magnifies  the  dangers  of 


272  SERMONS. 

the  journey.  Every  step  appears  to  lead  into  some 
hidden  snare,  and  every  stone  to  be  the  mark  of  some 
deep  pitfalL  Ever}'"  thicket  is  an  ambush ,  every 
dark  spot  an  expected  place  of  conflict.  The  hardy 
plants  that  bloom  along  the  rugged  path  seem  poison- 
ous ;  the  springs  provided  by  the  Master  for  his  pil- 
grims are  passed  by  in  timid  and  suspicious  thirst. 
And  when  at  length  the  body  sinks  exhausted  and  in 
need  of  slumber,  all  seems  lost ;  and  the  man  of  little 
faith  sleeps  in  the  belief  that  he  shall  never  wake. 
And  when  he  does  awake,  it  is  only  to  a  repetition  of 
the  same  illusion.  He  is  still  afraid  that  he  shall 
never  reach  the  city.  He  is  still  unable  to  discover 
it  in  the  distance ;  he  will  not  look  for  it,  but  keeps 
his  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground ;  or  if  he  looks,  he  will 
not  look  to  the  right  point ;  or  if  he  looks  to  the  right 
point,  he  finds  the  mist  too  dense,  or  the  light  too 
bright  for  his  diseased  vision.  Or  if  he  sees  the  ob- 
ject, he  refuses  to  believe  his  senses,  and  suspects  de- 
hision  on  the  only  point  where  he  is  free  from  it. 

Thus  goes  the  doubter  on,  often  ready  to  lie  down 
and  die,  and  sometimes  tempted  to  go  back  or  turn 
aside,  but  still  maving  onward  because  Christ  is  in  his 
heart,  and  the  secret  hope  that,  notwithstanding  all 
his  fears,  he  shall  yet  appear  in  Zion  before  God. 
But  see,  the  prospect  changes.  Real  dangers  now 
arise.  The  storm  which  deluges  the  valley  sweeps 
across  the  mountain  also.  The  doubting  Christian 
gives  up  all  for  lost.  But  the  very  dangers  which 
alarm  his  fears,  quicken  his  footsteps,  and  although 
he  may  believe  that  he  is  going  wrong,  the  temj^est 
and  the  earthquake  drive  him  on  and  up,  until  the 


HEBREWS  11,  10.  273 

last  ascent  is  gained,  until  the  last  cloud  breaks  awaj, 
and  he  who  thouglit  himself  approaching  to  the  verge 
of  an  abyss,  finds  himself  standing  on  an  everlasting 
rock,  and  at  the  threshold  of  an  everlasting  door.  If 
shame  can  then  be  felt,  he  blushes  as  he  looks  back 
for  a  moment  at  the  scene  of  his  imaginary  ter- 
rors, which  now  seem  so  sweet  ;  the  sun  breaks^ 
out  upon  the  path  which  he  has  trodden,  and  glad- 
dens every  dark  spot  where  he  wept  or  trembled  ; 
the  noises  which  once  terrified  him  and  have  still  pur- 
sued him,  now  begin  to  blend  with  shouts  and  songs 
of  triumph  within  ;  the  everlasting  doors  lift  up  their 
heads,  and  with  one  farewell  look  at  earth's  baseless 
fabrics,  the  emancipated  soul  enters,  never  to  return, 
the  city  which  hath  foundations,  whos«  builder  and 
maker  is  God. 


VOL.  II. — 12* 


XV. 

1  Thessaloniaxs  5,  25. — Brethren,  pray  for  us. 

Tins  brief  request,  standing,  as  it  does,  in  a  series 
of  laconic  exhortations,  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the 
importance  "which  the  Scriptures  attach  to  intercessory 
prayer,  "  Kejoice  evermore,"  "  pray  without  ceasing," 
"  quench  not  the  Spirit,"  "  despise  not  prophesyings," 
"  prove  all  things,  hold  fast  that  which  is  good,"  "  ab- 
stain from  all  appearance  of  evil ;  "  these  are  some  of 
the  p>recepts  with  which  it  stands  connected.  With 
an  evident  design  to  close  his  epistle  with  a  series  of 
pointed  practical  directions,  the  apostle  gives  a  place 
among  them  not  only  to  the  general  precept,  "  pray 
without  ceasing,"  but  also  to  the  special  request, 
"  brethren,  pray  for  us."  The  request  itself  is  one 
very  frequently  repeated  in  the  Fauline  epistles,  under 
difterent  forms,  but  always  expressive  of  the  writer's 
confidence  in  the  real  efiicacy  of  such  intercessions,  as 
means  of  spiritual  good  to  himself,  and  of  furtherance 
to  the  glorious  cause  in  which  he  was  engaged.  To 
the  Hebrews,  Paul  says,  "  Pray  for  us,  for  we  trust 
we  have  a  good  conscience,  willing  in  all  things  to 
live  honestly ;  but  I  beseech  you  the  rather  to  do  this, 


1  TIIESSALONIA.NS  5,  25.  275 

that  I  may  be  restored  to  you  the  sooner."  (Ileb.  13, 
18.  19.)  The  same  request  is  made  to  the  Romans 
with  reference  to  the  same  result,  but  with  greater 
earnestness  of  importunity.  "  Xow  I  beseech  you, 
brethren,  for  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ's  sake  and  for  the 
love  of  the  Spirit,  that  ye  strive  together  with  me  in 
your  prayers  to  God  for  me,  that  I  may  be  delivered 
from  them  that  do  not  believe  in  Judea,  that  my  ser- 
vice for  Jerusalem  may  be  accepted  of  the  saints,  that 
I  may  come  unto  you  with  joy  by  the  will  of  God,  and 
may  with  you  be  refreshed."  (Eom.  15,  30-32.)  In 
asking  the  same  favour,  and  exacting  the  same  duty  of 
the  Ephesians,  he  sets  before  them,  as  the  end  to  be  at- 
tained, his  greater  fidelity  and  success  in  the  perform- 
ance of  his  ministerial  functions,  "  praying  always 
with  all  prayer  and  supplication  in  the  Spirit,  and 
watching  thereunto  with  all  perseverance  and  suppli- 
cation for  all  saints,  and  for  me^  that  utterance  may 
be  given  unto  me,  that  I  may  open  my  mouth  boldly, 
to  make  known  the  mystery  of  the  gospel,  for  which 
I  am  an  ambassador  in  bonds,  that  therein  I  may 
speak  boldly  as  I  ought  to  speak."  (Eph.  6,  18-20.) 

In  all  these  passages  there  are  several  points  of  re- 
semblance, connecting  them  together,  and  identifying 
them  as  characteristic  marifestations  of  one  and  the 
same  Spirit,  the  same  personality.  In  the  first  place, 
there  is  the  absorption  of  the  whole  soul,  with  its  pow- 
ers and  afi"ections,  in  the  one  great  object  of  the  writer's 
life.  In  the  next  place,  there  is  the  habitual  disposition 
to  do  something  more  than  think  of  it,  or  wish  for  its  at- 
tainment, the  disposition  to  employ  with  energy  the  ne- 
cessary means  and  all  the  means  available.  In  the  third 


276  SERMONS. 

place,  there  is  the  appearance,  or  rather  the  conclusive 
evidence  of  a  thorough  persuasion,  that  among  these 
means  the  prayers  of  true  believers  held  a  place  and  an 
important  place  ;  that  the  apostle  asked  them  and  en- 
joined them,  not  merely  as  a  salutary  exercise  to  those 
whom  he  addressed,  not  merely  as  a  token  of  affection 
and  of  confidence  on  his  part  towards  them,  but  as  a 
real  efficacious  means  to  the  attainment  of  that  end  for 
v^diich  he  lived  and  was  prepared  to  die,  as  actually 
helping  him,  procuring  him  divine  grace,  and  in  a  cer- 
tain sense  securing  his  success,  and  even  his  salvation. 
This  idea,  which  is  not  obscurely  implied,  in  the 
passages  already  quoted,  is  distinctly  expressed  in 
others,  as  wlien  writing  to  the  Church  at  Corinth, 
after  speaking  of  the  dangers  and  sufferings  from 
which  God  Lad  delivered  him,  he  adds,  "in  whom 
we  trust  that  he  will  yet  deliver  us,  ye  also  helping 
together  by  prayer  for  us,  that  for  the  gift  bestowed 
upon  us  by  the  means  of  many  persons,  thanks  may 
be  given  by  many  on  our  behalf."  (2  Cor.  1,  10.  11.) 
But  the  strongest  expression  of  this  confidence,  in  con- 
nection with  the  great  apostle's  governing  desire,  and 
we  may  almost  say  his  ruling  passion,  is  contained  in 
his  address  to  the  Philippians,  with  respect  to  one 
of  the  severest  trials  which  he  had  experienced. 
"What  then?  notwithstanding,  every  way,  whether 
in  pretence  or  in  truth,  Christ  is  preached,  and  I 
therein  do  rejoice,  yea,  and  will  rejoice.  For  I  know 
that  this  shall  turn  to  my  salvation  through  your 
prayer  and  the  supply  of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ, 
according  to  my  earnest  expectation  and  my  hope 
that  in  nothing  I  shall  be  ashamed,  but  that  with  all 


1  THESSALONIANS  5,  25.  27Y 

boldness,  as  always,  so  now  also,  Christ  sliall  be  mag- 
nified in  my  body,  whether  it  be  by  life  or  by  death  ; 
for  to  me  to  live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain."  (Phil. 
1,  18-21.) 

With  this  sublime  expression  of  humility  and  tri- 
umph, of  indifference  and  superiority  to  life  and  death, 
and  at  the  same  time  of  believing  reliance  on  the 
power  even  of  human  intercession,  I  close  the  exam- 
ples of  Paul's  habitual  desire  and  entreaty  for  the 
prayers  of  others.  What  has  been  cited  will  suffice 
to  show  that,  at  his  own  request,  and  in  obedience  to 
his  own  command,  "  prayer  was  made  without  ceas- 
ing of  the  church  unto  God  for  him,"  (Acts  12,  5,) 
throughout  the  wide  field  of  his  apostolic  labours,  in 
Italy,  in  Greece,  in  Asia  Minoi-,  and  in  Palestine  ;  at 
Pome,  at  Corinth,  at  Pliilippi,  at  Tliessalonica,  at 
Ephesus,  and  among  the  churches  of  the  Hebrew 
Christians.  This  extensive  organization  of  a  system- 
atic and  concerted  intercession,  in  behalf  of  the  apos- 
tle and  his  work,  is  a  practical  demonstration  that  he 
not  only  believed  in  the  necessity  and  efficacy  of 
])rayer  in  general,  but  of  intercession  in  particular,  and 
that  so  far  from  regarding  the  ministry  or  even  the 
apostleship  as  superior  to  this  means  of  grace,  as  ex- 
empted from  the  need  of  it,  he  looked  upon  the  ex- 
altation of  his  office,  and  the  greatness  of  his  work,  as 
creating  a  peculiar  and  more  urgent  necessity  for  this 
assistance,  that  his  official  movements,  and  his  inter- 
course with  the  churches  might  be  unobstructed  ;  that 
his  mouth  might  be  opened  to  speak  boldly  as  ho 
ought  to  speak ;  that  the  very  trials  and  diseonrage- 
ments  with  which  he  met  might  tend  to  the  salvation 


278  SERMONS. 

of  himself  and  others,  and  that,  wheJier  living  or 
d}"ing,  he  might  gain  Ids  darling  end,  that  of  magni- 
fying Christ,  AVith  such  an  end  in  view,  and  with 
sncli  convictions  of  the  means  by  "which  it  was  to  be 
accomplislied,  Paul  nttered  volumes  when  he  wrote 
these  four  words,  Brethren^  pray  for  us. 

■  Let  us  now  consider,  for  a  moment,  whether  Paul 
regarded  this  important  spiritual  service  as  incumbent 
only  upon  others  towards  himself,  or  whether  he  ex- 
pected it  to  be  reciprocal,  both  as  an  obligation  and 
a  benefit.  Tlie  solution  of  this  question  will  be 
greatly  facilitated,  and  the  result  rendered  far  more 
striking,  by  applying  the  inquiry  to  those  very 
churches  upon  which  we  have  seen  the  apostle  so  im- 
portunately calling  for  their  intercessions.  iSTear  the 
end  of  his  epistle  to  the  Eomans,  we  have  heard  him 
asking  "  for  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ's  sake  and  for  the 
love  of  the  Spirit,"  that  they  would  strive  together 
with  him  in  prayer  to  God  for  him.  (Rom.  15,  30.) 
The  prayers  of  the  apostle,  in  which  they  are  asked 
to  join,  miglit  seem  to  be  prayers  only  for  himself  and 
for  his  work.  But  near  the  beginning  of  the  same 
epistle,  with  a  solemn  appeal  to  the  Searcher  of  hearts, 
expressing  liis  anxiety  to  be  believed,  and  implying 
the  importance  of  the  fact  in  question,  he  says,  "  God 
is  my  witness,  whom  I  serve  with  my  spirit  in  the 
gospel  of  his  Son,  (still  keeping  in  his  own  view  and 
the  view  of  others  his  ofl&cial  relations  to  the  Church 
and  to  its  head,)  that  without  ceasing,  I  make  mention 
of  you  always  in  my  prayers."  (Rom.  1,  9.)  Observe 
the  strength  of  the  expressions,  always,  without  ceas- 
ing, lest  he  should  be  understood  as  speaking  only  of 


1  THESSALONIANS  5,  25.  279 

periodical  or  occasional  intercession,  and  not  of  the 
habitual  and  constant  burden  of  liis  prayers.  What 
follows  might  indeed  seem  to  describe  even  Paul's 
own  prayers,  as  having  reference  simply  to  hmiself, 
"  making  request  if  by  any  means  now  at  length  I 
might  have  a  prosperous  journey  by  the  will  of  God 
to  come  unto  you."  (Eom.  1,  10.)  But  how  utterly 
unselfish  even  this  desire  was,  breaks  out  in  the  next 
sentence,  "  for  I  long  to  sec  you,  that  I  may  impart 
unto  you  some  spiritual  gift,  to  the  end  that  ye  may 
be  established."  (Rom.  1,  11.)  It  was  for  their  sake 
that  he  thus  desired  to  come  to  them,  yet  likewise  for 
his  own,  "  that  is  that  I  may  be  comforted  together 
with  you,  or  jointly  comforted  in  you,  by  the  mutual 
faith  both  of  you  and  me,"  (Rom.  1,  12,)  a  beautiful 
expression  of  the  truth  that  he  who  prays  for  others 
not  only  will  pray  for  himself,  but  does  so  in  the  very 
act  of  intercession,  by  identifying  his  own  sj^iritual 
interest  with  that  of  those  for  whom  he  prays,  and 
legarding  every  blessing  granted  to  them  as  being 
more  or  less  directly  a  blessing  to  himself. 

AVe  have  seen  that  Paul  prayed  for  the  Romans 
always,  without  ceasing.  In  like  numner  he  says  to 
the  Ephesians,  (1,  15.  16,)  "I,  also,  after  I  heard  of 
your  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  love  to  all  the  saints, 
cease  not  to  give  thanks  for  you,  making  mention  of 
you  in  my  prayers."  Here  again  the  constancy  of 
his  intercessions  is  particularly  mentioned  ;  but  there 
are  two  additional  circumstances  not  to  be  neglected. 
The  one  is,  that  the  apostle's  prayers  for  the  Ei)hesian 
Christians,  included  thanksgiving  for  what  they  were 
already  and  had  already  experienced.     The  other  is, 


2§()  SERMOKS. 

that  these  attainments  in  tlie  spiritual  life,  although 
calling  for  grateful  recognition,  did  not  preclude  the 
necessity  of  earnest  prayer  that  God  would  grant  to 
them  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  of  revelation,  in  the 
knowledge  of  him  and  of  the  riches  of  that  glorious 
salvation  to  which  he  had  called  them.  Gratitude 
for  past  gifts  did  but  stir  up  the  apostle  to  ask  more. 
To  the  Pliilippians,  through  whose  prayer  the  Apostle 
knew  that  even  his  sorest  trials  should  turn  to  his  sal- 
vation, (PJiil.  1.  19,)  he  says,  as  he  said  to  the  Ephe- 
sians,  "  I  thank  my  God  upon  every  mention  or  re- 
membrance of  you,  always^  in  every  prayer  of  mine 
for  you  all,  making  request  with  joy."  (Phil.  1,  3.  4.) 
Here  again  the  prayer  is  a  daily,  a  perpetual  prayer, 
a  thankful,  nay,  a  joyful  prayer,  a  prayer  for  further, 
greater  gifts,  increasing  knowledge,  holiness  and  use- 
fulness, as  instruments  in  glorifying  God — "  And 
this  I  pray,  that  your  love  may  abound  yet  more  and 
more  in  knowledge  and  in  all  judgment,  that  ye  may 
be  sincere  and  without  offence  until  the  day  of  Jesus 
Christ,  being  filled  with  the  fruits  of  righteousness 
which  are  by  Jesus  Christ  unto  the  glory  and  praise 
of  God."  (Phil.  1,  9.  11.)  To  the  same  Thessalonians 
whom  Paul  exhorts  to  pray  without  ceasing,  (1  Thess. 
5,  17,)  and  to  pray  for  him,  (ib.  5,  25,)  he  could  say 
and  does  say,  "  We  give  thanks  to  God  always  for  you 
all,  making  mention  of  you  in  our  prayers, "  (1  Thess. 
1^  2.) — and  again,  with  his  favourite  combination  ot 
thanksgiving,  joy,  and  importunate  desire — "AVhat 
thanks  can  we  render  to  God  again  for  you,  for  all 
the  joy  wherewith  we  joy  for  your  sakes  before  our 
God,   night   and  day  praying  exceedingly   that   we 


1  THESSALONIANS  5,  25.  281 

might  see  your  face  and  might  perfect  that  which  is 
Licking  in  your  faith?"  (1  Thess.  3,  9.  10.)  As  he 
shows  how  far  he  Avas  from  stagnant  acquiescence 
in  wliat  he  had  obtained  ah-eady  for  them,  by  his 
prayers  for  their  advancement  in  the  spiritual  life,  so 
lie  shows  how  far  he  is  from  flattering  their  spiritual 
pride,  by  making  the  deficiency  of  their  faith  a  reason 
for  continuing  to  pray  even  for  those  whose  actual 
attainments  he  regarded  as  a  matter  of  gratitude 
and  joy.  In  the  same  spirit,  he  says  in  another 
epistle  to  the  same  Thessalonians,  "  we  pray  always 
for  you  that  our  God  would  count  you  worthy  of  this 
calling,  and  fulfil  all  the  good  pleasure  of  his  good- 
ness and  the  work  of  faith  with  power,  that  the  name 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  may  be  glorified  in  you,  and 
ye  in  him,  according  to  the  grace  of  our  God,  and  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."\2  Thess.  1,  11.  12.)  I  shall  only 
add,  under  this  head,  that  for  the  same  Corinthians, 
whom  Paul  describes  as  hel})ing  together  by  prayer 
for  him  and  his  associates,  he  prays  to  God,  in  the 
same  epistle,  that  they  may  do  no  evil,  and  rising  still 
higher,  that  they  may  be  perfect.  (2  Cor.  13,  7.  U.) 

It  is  surely  no  fortuitous  coincidence,  that  in  these 
five  cases,  the  same  persons,  whose  prayers  he  im- 
portunately asks  for  himself,  are  represented  as  the 
subjects  of  his  own  unceasing,  thankful,  joyful,  fer- 
vent intercessions.  The  general  inference  is  there- 
fore obvious  enough,  that  one  of  the  most  uniform 
and  intimate  relations  which  subsisted  between  Paul 
and  his  spiritual  children,  throughout  the  vast  field  of 
his  labours,  was  that  of  mutual  intercession,  not  as  a 
mere  interchange  of  spiritual  compliments,  but  as  an 


282  SERMONS. 

indispensable  and  efficacious  means  of  grace.     That 
this  was  not  an  incident  of  the  apostleship,  a  relation 
growing  out  of  any  thing  peculiar  in  the  circumstan- 
ces under  which  these  Christians  were  converted,  is 
clear,  not  only  from  the  absence  of  any  terms  imply- 
ing such  restriction,  and  from  the  fact  that  Paul's  fel- 
low-labourers are  more  than  once  apparently  included 
with  himself  in  the  profession  and  request,  but  also 
from  the  obvious  consideration  that,  as  soon  as  we 
are  able  to  perceive  and  willing  to  admit  the  existence 
of  sufficient  reasons  for  this  mutual  relation  in  the 
case  of  the  apostle  and  his  spiritual  children,  every 
one  of  these  reasons  bears  with  double  force  upon  the 
case  of  other  ministers  and  other  converts.     If  they 
who  had  received  the  gospel  under  the  impression  of 
inspired   preaching  and  attended   by  the  tokens   of 
miraculous  power,  needed  still   the  wrestling  inter- 
cessions of  the  man  of  God,  to  shield  them  against 
danger,  to  preserve  them  from  error,  and  to  fill  up 
what  was  lacking  of  their  faith,  how  much  more  must 
this  necessity  exist,  or  rather,  how  much  clearer  is  it, 
in    the  case   of   those  who  have  had   no  such  out- 
ward pledges   of   divine  interposition.     And   if  he, 
clothed  with  extraordinary  powers,  accredited  from 
heaven  by  the  signs  of  an  apostle,  had  occasion  so 
repeatedly  and  earnestly  to  ask  the  prayers  of  others 
for  his  personal  safety  and  the  progress  of  his  work, 
how  much  more  pressing  should  the  sense  of  this  ne- 
cessity be  on  the  hearts  of  those  who  with  ordinary 
powers  are  called  to  the  same  difficult  and  responsi- 
ble work. 

If  these  considerations  are  sufficient  to  extend  the 


1  THESSALONIANS  5,  25.  283 

application  of  tlie  principle  involved  in  the  ]ircccpt3 
and  the  practice  of  Paul,  to  all  Christ's  ministers  and 
those  who  are  in  any  sense  tlieir  spiritual  children,  it 
is  easy  to  foresee  that  the  very  same  reasoning  will 
carry  ns  still  further,  and  require  us  to  reco«riiizo  the 
right  and  duty  of  mutual  intercession  as  extending  to 
all  Christians,  and  as  arising,  not  from  any  peculiar 
official  relations,  but  from  a  common  character  and 
interest.  Whatever  special  motives  and  incitements 
to  the  duty  may  be  afforded  by  the  mutual  relations 
of  the  teacher  and  the  taught,  the  spiritual  father  and 
the  spiritual  children,  the  essential  ground  of  the  ne- 
cessity in  question  must  lie  back  of  these,  in  some- 
thing not  confined  to  these  relations,  but  existing  in 
the  common  experience  of  all  believers.  Especially 
is  this  the  case  if  we  regard  the  right  and  duty  of 
mutual  intercession,  not  as  a  mere  token  of  affection, 
but  as  an  appointed  and  effective  means  of  grace,  as 
well  to  those  who  ask  as  those  for  whom  they  ask. 
If  God  has  indeed  ordained  this  as  an  efficacious  in- 
strument of  spiritual  good,  it  cannot  be  sujiposed  that 
he  intended  to  restrict  its  use  and  operation  to  the 
case  of  those  who  sustain  what  may  be  called  an  acci- 
dental relation  to  each  other  in  the  fomily  of  Christ. 
The  necessity  of  mutual  intercession  may  indeed  ap- 
^  pear  to  some  to  be  so  clearly  involved  in  the  admit- 
ted necessity  of  pra^'er  in  general,  as  to  supersede  all 
argument  for  or  against  it.  The  difference  between 
prayer  for  others  and  ourselves,  being  merely  cir- 
cumstantial ;  the  essence  of  the  prayer,  as  consisting 
in  sincere  desire  addressed  to  God,  for  some  thing  in 
accordance  with  his  will,  is  of  course  the  same  in 


284  SERMONS. 

either  case.  The  exclusive  object  of  address  is  still 
the  same.  The  same  moral  qualities,  sincerity,  hu- 
mility and  faith,  are  requisite  in  both  to  make  the 
praj-er  acceptable.  The  warrant  of  encouragement  to 
\n-aj,  in  either  case,  is  furnished  by  God's  mercy  in 
the  precious  promises  with  which  his  word  abounds. 
There  is  but  one  throne  of  grace  and  one  way  of  ac- 
cess to  it.  The  meritorious  intercession  of  the  Son, 
and  the  auxiliary  intercession  of  the  Spirit,  are  in  all 
cases  equally  necessary. 

"Why  then  should  the  question  even  be  propound- 
ed, "Whether  prayer  for  others  is  a  right  and  duty  of 
all  Christians  ?  Not  of  course  because  the  answer  is 
in  any  measure  doubtful,  or  the  grounds  on  which  it 
rests  in  any  measure  recondite  or  susceptible  of  novel 
illustration,  but  simply  because  a  brief  consideration 
of  these  grounds  may  serve  to  place  the  duty  in  its 
proper  place,  not  only  as  a  duty,  but  as  an  important 
means  of  grace.  Because  we  are  familiar  with  the 
precepts  and  examples  of  the  Scriptures  on  this  sub- 
ject, it  does  not  follow  that  truth  respecting  it  might 
have  been  inferred  as  a  matter  of  course  from  the  gen- 
eral teachings  of  God's  word  respecting  prayer,  even 
without  specific  teachings  as  to  this  kind  of  prayer.  It 
is  conceivable,  to  say  the  least,  that  the  efficacious  in- 
fluence of  prayer  might  have  been  confined  to  the  sup- 
pliant himself.  Christian  benevolence,  it  is  true,  must 
prompt  him  to  desii'e  the  good  of  others,  and  to  use  the 
necessary  means  for  its  promotion.  But  this  might  not 
have  been  among  the  number.  The  power  of  men  to 
help  each  other  m'ght  have  been  restricted  to  the  use 
of  physical  and  moral  means  externally.     Such  an 


1  THESSALOXIANS  5,  25.  285 

arrangement  is  indeed  so  foreign  from  onr  scriptural 
associations  and  habitual  ideas  as  to  the  duty  and  the 
means  of  doing  good  to  one  another,  that  -sve  may  find 
it  hard  to  form  a  definite  idea  of  it  as  really  existing. 
But  as  no  man  can  believe,  or  repent,  or  obey  for 
another ;  as  each  man  must  in  this  respect  bear  his 
own  burden ;  as  the  wants  and  dangers  of  each  are 
numberless,  requiring  all  the  grace  that  he  can  ask  ; 
it  would  not  be  absurd,  in  the  absence  of  explicit  rev- 
elation and  experience,  to  suppose  that  every  man 
was  called  upon  to  pray  for  himself,  for  the  pardon 
of  his  own  sins,  for  the  sanctification  of  his  own  cor- 
rupt nature,  for  liis  own  deliverance  from  the  power 
of  temptation,  and  his  own  preparation  for  the  joys 
of  heaven,  without  presuming  to  address  the  throne 
of  grace  in  behalf  of  any  other,  liowever  strong  his 
sympathy,  however  ardent  his  desires  for  their  good. 
Such  a  supposition,  however  foreign  from  the  actual 
state  of  things  is,  in  itself,  no  more  surprising  than 
that  all  participation  in  the  faith,  repentance  and 
obedience  of  each  other,  is  impossible  to  true  believ- 
ers, however  earnestly  they  may  desire  to  supi)ly  each 
other's  lack  of  faith  or  service,  or  to  bear  each  other's 
burdens.  On  these  grounds,  and  in  this  sense,  the 
right  and  duty  of  intercessory  prayer,  however  certain 
and  familiar,  may  be  represented  as  a  doctrine  of  rev- 
elation, rather  than  a  necessary  rational  deduction  from 
the  necessity  of  prayer  in  general,  as  a  means  of  pro- 
curing the  divine  favour,  and  an  immediate  source  of 
salutary  spiritual  influence.  This  view  of  the  matter,  so 
far  from  obscuring  the  glory  of  divine  grace  as  beheld 
in  the  economy  of  man's  salvation,  greatly  enhances 


286  SERMONS. 

it  by  making  that  a  free  gift,  a  gratuitous  concession, 
winch  might  otherwise  have  seemed  to  be  a  natural 
necessity.  If  men  might  justly  have  been  suffered  to 
pray  only  for  themselves,  as  they  are  actually  suffered 
to  repent  and  believe  only  for  themselves,  then  the 
privilege  of  doing  good  to  others  by  our  prayers,  and 
of  deriving  benefit  from  theirs,  is  a  distinguishing 
feature  in  the  gospel  system,  and  a  notable  instance 
of  divine  compassion.  That  the  system  does,  in  point 
of  fact,  include  such  a  provision,  is  a  proposition 
which  requires  no  proof.  That  it  occupies  a  prom- 
inent position,  and  is  insisted  on  as  highly  important, 
is  sufficiently  established  by  Paul's  precept  and  ex- 
ample as  already  exhibited.  We  have  seen  that  with 
a  frequency  and  emphasis  too  marked  to  be  mistaken, 
he  addresses  to  the  same  persons  urgent  requests  for 
their  prayers  in  his  behalf,  and  strong  asseverations 
of.  his  constancy  in  prayer  for  them.  "We  have  seen 
tliat  tlie  blessings  which  he  hopes  to  obtain  through 
their  intercession,  are  deliverance  from  danger,  con- 
solation under  sorrow,  but  especially-  boldness  and 
success  in  his  ministry,  and  more  abundant  honour 
to  the  name  of  Christ.;  while  the  mercies  which  he 
asks  on  their  behalf  are  steadfastness,  increase  of  faith, 
of  love,  of  knowledge,  more  abundant  usefulness,  and 
full  salvation.  From  these  examples  we  may  easily 
deduce  a  safe  and  comprehensive  rule  as  to  the  ob- 
jects and  the  compass  of  our  intercession. 

The  induction  may  however  be  made  more  ex- 
tensive by  inquiring  briefly  what  other  cases  are  par- 
ticularly mentioned  in  connection  with  this  duty,  that 
is  to  say  for  whom  and  for  what  the  Scriptures  teach 


1 


1  TDESSALONIANS  5,  25.  287 

US  either  by  precept  or  example  that  we  may  or 
ought  to  intercede.  The  right  and  duty  once  estab- 
lished, it  is  true,  there  can  be  no  practical  difficulty 
in  applying  the  princij)le  to  special  cases,  any  more 
than  in  applying  the  general  rule  of  charity  or  Chris- 
tian love.  It  has  pleased  God,  however,  to  incite  and 
regulate  our  best  atfections,  not  by  general  rules 
merely,  but  by  particular  directions  and  examples,  so 
as  to  leave  us  under  no  doubt  either  with  respect  to 
our  right  and  duty  in  the  general,  or  to  particular 
cases  and  emergencies.  Lest  the  mention  of  some 
cases  should  be  understood  as  simply  exclusive  of  all 
others,  we  have  general  precepts  of  the  largest  kind. 
"I  exhort  therefore,  that  first  of  all,  supplications, 
prayers,  intercessions,  should  be  made  for  all  men," 
then  with  a  distinct  specification  of  a  certain  class, 
"  for  kings,  and  all  that  are  in  authority,"  not  merely 
for  their  own  sake,  but  for  the  peace  of  society  aivd 
the  edification  of  the  church,  "  that  we  may  lead  a 
quiet  and  peaceable  life  in  all  godliness  and  hon- 
esty." (1  Tim.  S,  1.  2.)  But  while  we  arc  thus  author- 
ized and  taught  to  pray  for  men  in  general,  and  for 
that  class  on  whom  the  peace  and  welfare  of  the 
whole  depend,  we  are  especially  encouraged  to  cx2)ect 
a  blessing  on  our  prayers  for  true  believers,  "  praying 
always  with  all  j^rayer  and  supplication  in  the  Spirit, 
and  watching  thereunto  with  all  perseverance  and 
supplication  for  all  saints."  (Eph.  6,  18.)  A  different 
apostle  exhorts  believers  to  "  pray  one  for  another," 
(James  5,  IG,)  that  they  "  may  be  healed,"  whether  ot 
bodily  or  spiritual  maladies,  for  both  are  mentioned 
in  the  context.     This  peculiar  obligation  to  pray  for 


2gg  SERMONS. 

all  saints  docs  not  destroy  our  right  to  pray  for  sin- 
ners, and  especially  for  those  who  are  particularly 
near  to  ns.  While  we  pray  that  saints  may  be  saved 
from  error  and  from  temporal  distress,  we  should  pray 
that  sinners  may  be  saved  from  death  and  evcrlastin 
niin.  Paul's  heartfelt  desire  and  prayer  to  God  for 
Israel  was  "  that  they  might  be  saved."  (Rom.  10,  1.) 
So  intense. was  his  desire  for  this  blessing  that  he 
could  wish  himself  accursed  from  Christ  for  his  breth- 
ren, his  kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh."  (Rom.  9,  3.) 
"While  these  specifications  teach  us  that  the  most 
ex2)ansive  Christian  benevolence  has  no  need  to  con- 
sider itself  straitened  in  God,  there  are  others  to  warn 
us  against  being  straitened  in  ourselves.  As  we  are 
taught  not  to  restrain  prayer  before  God  on  account 
of  exceptions  wliich  we  may  suppose  him  to  have 
made,  so  likewise  we  are  taught  not  to  restrain  it  on 
account  of  exceptions  which  we  make  ourselves. 
To  pray  for  children  may  be~deemed  a  thankless  or  a 
needless  form  ;  and  so  when  "  there  were  brought 
unto  "  our  Saviour  "  little  children  thai  he  should  put 
liis  hands  on  them  and  pray,  the  disciples  rebuked 
those  that  brought  them,  but  when  Jesus  saw  it,  he 
was  much  displeased  and  said,  suffer  little  children 
to  come  unto  me  and  forbid  them  not,  for  of  such  is 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  he  took  them  up  in  his 
arms,  put  his  hands  upon  them,  and  blessed  them." 
This  was  an  exercise  of  his  divine  ^prerogative.  The 
only  way  in  wliich  a  mere  man  can  eflectually  bless 
is  by  invoking  the  blessing  of  God,  i.  c,  by  praying 
for  the  object.  ^This  example  of  the  Saviour,  there- 
fore, furnishes  a  rule  for  our  intercessions,  by  teaching 


1  THESSALONIANS  5,  25.  £89 

US  that  even  little  cliiklren  may  be  prayed  for.  Here 
the  exception,  if  made  at  all,  would  rest  on  tlie  sup- 
posed insignificance  of  the  object. 

But  there  are  other  cases  where  a,  deeper  feeling 
and  a  stronger  motive  may  be  supposed  to  hinder  in- 
tercession. To  pray  for  fellow-Christians  is  an  obli- 
gation easily  acknowledged.  To  pray  even  for  sin- 
ners if  they  be  our  friends,  can  scarcely  be  denied  to 
be  a  duty.  To  pray  for  those  unknown  to  us,  or  those 
to  whom  we  are  indifferent,  is  still  an  obligation 
which  may  be  externally  discharged  at  least  without 
repugnance.  But  to  pray  for  enemies  might  seem  to 
be  impossible,  or  if  possible,  extravagant,  the  mere  ro- 
mance of  charity,  if  we  did  not  know  it  to  be  the 
glory  of  the  Christian  morality,  the  triumph  of  the 
gospel  over  Jew  and  Gentile.  "  Ye  have  heard  that 
it  hath  been  said  thou  slialt  love  thy  neighbour  and 
hate  thine  enemy  ;  but  I  say  unto  you,  love  your  en- 
emies, bless  them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them 
that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  that  despitefully  use 
you  and  persecute  you."  (Matt.  5,  44.)  Well  might 
the  Saviour  add  to  such  a  precept,  "  be  ye  therefore 
pei-fect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect."  'No 
religion  or  morality  but  that  which  aims  at  the  high- 
est perfection  could  find  place  for  such  a  privilege  or 
such  a  duty.  Nay,  not  only  are  our  enemies  to  be 
the  subjects  of  our  intercessions,  but  forgiveness  of 
injuries  is  made  the  condition  of  our  being  heard  at 
11  for  others  or  ourselves.  "  By  this  variety  of  precept 
and  example,  we  are  not  only  assured  of  our  right 
and  duty  to  pray  for  others  as  well  as  for  ourselves, 
but  are  taught,  in  every  variety  of  form,  that  in  our 

VOL.  11. — 13 


290 


SERMONS. 


application  of  the  general  rnle,  u-e  need  make  lo  ex- 
ceptions on  account  of  the  unworthiness  or  insignifi- 
cancy of  the  object  prayed  for,  and  we  must  make  no 
exceptions,  in  compliance  with  a  spirit  of  malignant 
partiality,  Nevertheless,  we  may  and  must  pray 
more  earnestly  for  some  than  others.  While  we  own 
tlie  obligation  to  make  supplications,  prayers,  inter- 
cessions, and  giving  of  thanks  for  all  men,  and  espe- 
cially for  kings  and  all  in  authority,  that  we  may 
lead  quiet  and  peaceable  lives  in  all  godliness  and 
honesty,  it  is  natural  and  right  that  we  should  pray 
with  all  prayer  and  supplication  in  the  Spirit,  and 
watch  thereunto  with  all  perseverance  and  supplica- 
tion for  all  saints,  and  even  among  these  we  may  pray 
with  special  emphasis  for  God's  ambassadors,  that  ut- 
terance may  be  given  them,  or  for  his  new-born  chil- 
dren that  they  may  be  sincere  and  without  offence 
until  the  day  of  Jesus  Christ.  AVe  may  pray  for  all 
men,  but  there  are  some  who  have  a  special  right  to 
say  to  us  and  we  to  them.  Brethren^  jyray  for  us. 

To  the  questions,  may  we  pray  for  others  ?  must 
we  pray  for  others  ?  a  sufficient  answer  seems  to  have 
been  given  from  the  word  of  (lod.  To  the  further 
question,  whether  we  sufficiently  appreciate  the  value 
of  this  doctrine,  and  its  influence  upon  the  whole  con- 
dition of  the  Christian,  we  may  all,  perhaps,  safely 
and  sincerely  answer  no.  In  order  to  recover  or  ob- 
tain a  correct  notion  of  the  value  of  salvation,  it  is 
not  unusual  to  recur  to  the  position  that  without  in- 
justice, and  without  detracting  even  from  his  good- 
ness, God  might  have  left  the  world  to  perish  without 
hope.     But  even  supposing  that  he    tieaut  to  save 


1  THESSALONIANS  5,  25.  291 

some  from  eternal  misery,  he  might  ha"<^e  left  them 
in  a  dubious  state  of  mingled  good  and  €  ril  like  the 
present  life.  Or  even  if  he  meant  to  make  them  ulti- 
mately blessed,  he  might  have  suffered  ages  of  expur- 
gatory  suffering  to  intervene.  But  God  has  magnified 
the  riches  of  his  wisdom,  power,  and  grace,  by  reveal- 
ing a  method  of  total  deliverance  from  evil,  and  of 
introduction  to  eternal  bliss,  directly  subsequent  to 
the  i^resent  state.  The  transition  of  the  saved  is  not 
from  darkness  into  an  eternal  twilight,  or  through 
twiliglit  into  a  far-distant  day.  It  is  from  darkness 
to  light,  from  total  darkness  to  unclouded  light,  from 
death  to  life,  from  hell  to  heaven,  from  the  power  of 
Satan  unto  God.  And  yet  so  familiar  are  our  minds 
with  this  great  doctrine,  that  we  compare  it  only  with 
itself,  forgetting  the  innumerable  terrible  alternatives 
which  might  have  been  presented.  Forgetting  what 
miglit  have  been,  we  look  upon  what  is  as  that  which 
must  be,  and  detract  so  much  from  our  inducements 
to  adore  the  saving  grace  of  God.  Now  the  error 
thus  committed  with  respect  to  the  whole  method  of 
salvation,  may  be  rej^eated  likewise  with  respect  to 
many  of  the  particular  provisions  comprehended  in  it. 
By  regarding  what  is  actually  done  as  the  result  of 
a  fatal  necessity,  we  fail  to  consider  what  our  con- 
dition might  have  been,  and  thus  withhold  from  God 
a  large  share  of  the  praise  which  would  have  been 
extorted  from  us  by  a  view  of  what  he  has  gratui- 
tously added  to  the  bare  hope  of  deliverance  from 
hell.  He  might  have  left  us  as  it  were  within  its 
jaws,  and  hanging  over  the  abyss  of  fire.  He  might 
have  left  us  on  its  verge  enveloped  in  its  thick  smoke, 


292  SERMONS. 

and  deafened  by  its  ascending  shrieks  ;  in  a  word,  he 
miglit  have  done  immeasureably  less  for  us,  and  yet 
have  saved  us.  To  borrow  a  single  illustration  from 
the  subject  which  has  been  before  us,  God  might  have 
given  us  the  hope  and  promise  of  eternal  life,  and  yet 
excluded  us  till  death  from  all  communion  with  him- 
self, from  all  approach  to  him  in  prayer.  Oh,  what 
a  dispensation  even  of  free  mercy,  yet  without  a 
tlirone  of  grace,  or  way  of  access  to  the  Father !  Or 
again,  he  might  have  suffered  us  to  pray,  but  only  for 
ourselves,  v,nthout  the  right  of  intercession  on  behalf 
of  others,  or  the  hope  of  human  intercession  for  om*- 
selves.  The  way  in  which  we  are  affected  by  this 
supposition  may  perhaps  afford  a  measure  of  the 
value  which  we  put  upon  the  privilege.  If  we  regard 
it  with  indifference,  its  practical  value  is,  to  us,  as 
nothing.  If  we  shrink  from  the  idea  of  a  different 
arrangement  with  sincere  aversion,  it  can  only  be  be- 
cause we  estimate  in  some  degree  aright  that  wonder- 
ful provision  of  God's  mercy  which,  by  suffering  his 
redeemed  ones  to  pray  not  only  for  themselves,  but 
for  others,  with  the  hope  of  being  heard,  and  with 
the  promise  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  aid  their  infirmities, 
establishes  an  intimate  connection  between  every  re- 
newed soul  and  every  other,  through  the  throne  of 
grace  ;  a  subtle  and  mysterious  power,  by  which  one 
may  reach  another — nay,  may  reach  a  thousand — -nay, 
may  reach  a  world,  and  be  himself  the  object  of  as 
many  influences  as  he  thus  puts  forth  ;  of  influences 
tending  all  exclusively  to  good,  for  God  will  not  hear 
the  prajer  of  malice  and  hypocrisy,  nor  answer  that 
of  well-meant  ignorance; — one  so.il  interceding  for  all 


1  TUESSALONIANS  5,  25.  293 

saints,  and  all  saints,  as  it  were,  for  one — sending  np 
the  exhalation  of  a  pure  desire  for  others,  and  receiv- 
ing in  return  a  rain  of  heavenly  influence  ;  each  drop, 
each  shower,  representing  the  petition  of  some  pious 
heart,  on  which  his  own  prayers  had  invoked  a  bless- 
ing, either  individually,  or  as  one  in  the  nameless  but 
beloved  company  of  "  all  saints,"  for  which  the  Bible 
taught  him,  and  the  Spirit  prompted  him,  and  aided 
him  to  pray  !  The  hope  of  such  a  recompense,  even 
in  this  life,  together  with  the  impulse  and  variety  im- 
parted by  a  man's  prayers  for  others  to  his  prayers 
for  his  own  soul,  may  well  incite  us  both  to  utter  and 
obey  more  readily  the  precept  of  the  text ;  like  Paul, 
to  '-'■'pray  without  ceasing''^  for  the  brethren;  like 
Paul,  to  say,  '■''  Brethren^  ;pr  ay  for  us/" 


XVI. 

Retelation  14,  12.— Here  is  the  patiei  fe  of  the  saints;  here  are 
they  that  keep  the  commandineuts  of  God  -nd  the  faith  of  Jesus. 

The  duty,  necessity,  and  good  effects  of  patience, 
are  often  set  fo)-tli  in  the  word  of  God.  This  is  the 
more  remarkable,  because,  by  the  wisdom  of  the 
world,  ])atieiice,  unless  accompanied  by  selti^h  cun- 
ning, or  a  ])rond  cuntenij)t  of  others,  is  regarded 
rather  as  a  weakness  than  a  virtue.  Strongly  con- 
trasted with  this  vulgar  estimate  of  patience,  is  the 
lu-oniinence  with  which  it  is  exhibited,  commended, 
and  enjoined  in  Scripture.  The  application  of  the 
term,  however,  by  the  sacred  writers,  does  not  coin- 
cide exactly  with  its  ordinary  nsage.  Nor  is  its  nse 
in  Scripture  altogether  nniform.  The  name  is  some- 
times ai)plied  to  the  humble,  submissive  endurance 
of  suffering;  sometimes  to  consistent  perseverance  in 
any  good  course.  It  is  used,  however,  in  a  higher 
sense,  including  both  the  others  ;  and  even  where  the 
lower  sense  would  seem  appropriate,  there  is  often  at 
least  an  allusion  to  the  higher.  Evangelical  or  spir- 
itual patience  is  not  mere  resignation  to  the  ills  of 
life  and  the  dispensations  of  Providence,  nor  mere 


REVELATION  14,  12.  296 

perseverance  in  the  path  of  duty,  although  neither  of 
these  can  really  exist  without  it.  It  is  something 
more  than  either,  or  than  both  combined,  that  is  de- 
scribed in  Scripture  as  the  characteristic  patience  of 
the  saints,  or,  as  it  is  frequently  expressed,  their  pa- 
tient waiting  upon  God. 

This  English  phrase,  to  wait  ujpon^  has  gradually 
undergone  a  change  of  meaning.  In  modern  usage 
it  denotes  a  personal  service  or  attendance,  eitiier 
literal,  as  when  the  servant  waits  upon  his  master,  or 
metapliorical,  as  when  one  friend  is  said  to  wait  upon 
another.  Tlie  original  M'ords  which  it  is  used  to  rep- 
resent signify  simply  the  act  of  waiting  for,  including 
expectation  and  a  personal  interest  in  the  thing  ex- 
pected. This,  too,  is  the  primary  import  of  the  Eng- 
lish phrase  itself,  waiting  upon  and  waiting  for ^  hav- 
ing been  once  synonj-mous,  and  being  often  intei'- 
changed  in  our  translation  of  the  Bible.  As  applied 
to  servants  it  expresses  stricth'  nothing  more  than 
their  habitual  expectation  of  their  master's  orders. 
Its  general  sense  of  service  or  attendance,  is  a  sec- 
ondary one,  derived  from  tliis.  In  those  parts  of 
Scripture  where  the  duty  of  waiting  upon  God  is  ex- 
plained or  enlorccd,  the  idea  of  serving  him  is  cer- 
tainly implied,  but  the  direct  and  prinuu-y  meaning 
of  the  phrase,  is  that  of  waiting  for,  expecting  God, 
his  presence,  his  favour,  the  fulfilment  of  his  prom- 
ises, as  well  as  the  utterance  of  his  commands.  That 
state  of  mind  which  waits  for  God  in  this  sense, 
is  spiritual  patience.  The  Apostle's  declaration  to 
the  Hebrews,  "Ye  have  need  of  ]iatience,  that  after 
ye  have  done  the  will  of  God  ye  may  inherit  the 


296  SERMONS. 

promise,"  (Ileb.  10,  3G,)  seems,  at  first  sight,  to  mean 
merely  that  the  complete  fulfilment  of  the  promise 
would  be  long  deferred,  or,  in  other  words,  that  they 
must  -wait  long  for  it,  because  it  could  not  take  place 
until  after  they  had  done  the  will  of  God.  But  the 
words  are  applicable,  in  a  higher  sense,  to  the  neces- 
sity of  spiritual  patience,  as  a  characteristic  and  es- 
sential element  of  Christian  life,  without  which  no  one 
can  perform  either  part  of  the  great  work  described, 
i.  e.  can  either  do  the  will  of  God,  or  be  partaker  of 
his  promises.  The  same  necessity  is  intimated  by  the 
same  apostle,  in  the  same  epistle,  when  he  expresses 
his  desire  that  those  to  whom  he  writes  may  be  fol- 
lowers of  them  who,  through  faith  and  patience,  in- 
herit the  promises.  (Heb.  6,  12.)  So  far,  indeed,  as 
the  necessity  of  any  act,  or  habit,  or  afiection,  can  be 
expressed  by  an  exhortation  to  perform  or  cherish  it, 
the  necessity  of  spiritual  patience  may  be  said  to  be 
frcquentl}^  alleged  in  scripture,  both  directly,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  religious  obligation,  and  indirectly,  as  an  object 
of  God's  favour  and  a  source  of  blessing.  "  Blessed 
arc  all  they  that  wait  for  him."  (Isaiah  30,  18.)  "  It 
is  good  that  a  man  should  hope  and  quietly  wait  for  the 
salvation  of  the  Lord."  (Lamentations  3,  26.)  "The 
Lord  is  good  to  them  that  wait  for  him — to  the  soul 
that  seeketh  him."  (lb.  25.)  This  patient  waiting 
upon  God,  is  represented  not  only  as  acceptable  to 
him,  and  as  a  source  of  good  in  general,  but  of  spe- 
cific benefits,  withont  which  spiritual  life  can  never 
flourish,  if  it  can  exist.  For  example,  it  is  represent- 
ed as  a  source  of  strength,  i.  e.  spiritual  strength, 
the  power  of  performance,  and  ordinance,  and   re- 


REVELATION  14.  12.  297 

aistance — of  witlistanding  evil  and  of  doing  good. 
This  strength,  the  soul,  convinced  of  its  own  weakness; 
cannot  cease  to  long  for,  since,  without  it,  it  can 
neither  do  that  which  is  pleasing  in  the  sight  of  God 
nor  shnn  that  which  offends  him.  !N'ow  this  strength 
is  exhibited  in  Scripture,  not  as  the  result  of  any 
natural  power,  inherent  or  acquired,  nor  external  ad- 
vantages, defences,  safeguards,  and  facilities  of  action, 
but  of  patient  reliance  upon  God.  "Wait  on  the 
Lord,  be  of  good  courage,  and  he  shall  strengthen  thy 
heart;  wait,  I  say,  on  thb  Lord."  (Isaiah  27,  14.) 
It  is  indeed  contrasted  with  all  other  means  and  causes 
of  strength,  as  being  the  only  one  that  can  be  trusted, 
while  all  the  rest  are  imperfect  and  delusive.  Even 
the  strongest  who  rely  on  these,  shall  fiiil  and  be  ex- 
hausted ;  but  "  they  that  wait  on  the  Lord  shall  renew 
their  strength,  they  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as 
eagles ;  tliey  shall  run  and  not  be  weary  ;  they  shall 
walk  and  not  faint."     (Isaiah  40,  31.) 

So  far  from  warning  us  against  excess  in  the  em- 
ployment of  this  means  for  the  recruiting  of  our  spir- 
itual strength,  the  Scripture  points  it  out  as  the  high- 
way to  perfection — "  only  let  patience  have  its  perfect 
work,  tliat  ye  may  be  perfect  and  entire,  wanting 
nothing" — not  only  perfect  and  entire  in  patience,  but 
in  all  that  spiritual  patience  tends  to  generate  and 
foster.  (James  1,  4.)  It  is  presented  likewise  as  the 
only  security  against  the  disappointment  and  frus- 
tration of  onr  strongest  confidence  and  highest  trust. 
They  who  rely  upon  themselves  or  upon  any  other 
creature  for  this  same  security,  shall  surely  be  con- 
founded ;  but  God  himself  has  said,  "  they  shall  not 


298  SERMONS. 

be  ashamed,"  i.  e.  ace  )rding  to  the  usage  of  the  Bible, 
disappointed  ai.d  betrayed,  "that  wait  for  me." 
(Isaiah  49,  23.)  This  assurance  against  future  disap- 
pointment comprehends  within  its  scope  the  highest 
hopes  of  the  believer,  the  reality  of  which  is  expressly 
connected  with  the  exercise  of  patience.  "  They  that 
wait  on  the  Lord  shall  inherit  the  land."  (Psalm 
37,  9.)  "  Wait  on  the  Lord  and  keep  his  way  ;  he 
shall  exalt  thee  to  inherit  the  land."  (lb.  34.)  Nay, 
eternal  life  is  spoken  of  as  sure  only  "  to  them  who 
by  patient  continuance  in  well-doing  seek  for  glory, 
honour,  and  immortality."  (Romans  2,  7.) 

Such  are  the  terms  in  which  the  duty,  necessity, 
and  blessed  fruits  of  patience  are  exhibited  in  Scrip- 
ture. The  very  strength  of  the  expressions  and  the 
comprehensive  nature  of  the  promises  which  they  in- 
volve, might  suffice  to  show  that  the  patience  of  which 
Buch  things  are  affirmed  is  neither  resignation,  forti- 
tude, nor  constancy  of  purpose,  but  something  more 
than  either,  though  inclusive  of  them  all.  The  idea 
of  patience,  in  its  ordinary  sense,  is  of  course  presup- 
posed. That  the  heavenly  patience  thus  enjoined  and 
blessed,  is,  like  all  other  patience,  tranquil  and  quiet, 
the  negation  and  the  opposite  of  turbulence,  disorder, 
and  undue  excitement,  is  clear,  not  only  from  the  name 
applied  to  it,  but  also  from  the  declaration,  "it  is 
good  that  a  man  should  hope  and  quietly  wait  for  the 
salvation  of  the  Lord,"  (Lamentations  3,  26,)  and  from 
the  junction  of  the  two  commands,  ^^rest  in  the  Lord 
and  wait  patiently  for  him^''  (Psalm  37,  7.)  Is  it 
then  a  mere  inert  quiescence,  a  stagnation  of  the  soul, 
without  affection  or  activity,  that  God's  word  sets  be- 


REVELATION  14,  12.  299 

fore  ns,  as  a  duty,  as  a  necessaiy  source  of  streriixth, 
and  as  the  highway  to  perfection.  Such  a  conclu- 
sion is  well  suited  to  the  tendency  of  human  nature 
to  extremes  ;  but  if  it  were  correct,  the  Apostle  could 
never  have  used  such  a  combination — in  exhortino: 
the  Hebrew  Christians — "  that  ye  he  not  slothful^  but 
followers  of  them  who  through  faith  and  patience 
inherit  the  promises."  (Hebrews  6, 12.)  The  patience 
that  is  heir  to  the  promises  of  God,  is  therefore  not 
a  mere  negation,  not  a  stagnant  patience,  not  a  sloth- 
ful patience.  It  is  urged  on  to  action  by  a  potent 
principle,  the  love  of  God,  without  which  patient 
waiting,  in  the  true  sense,  is  impossible.  "  The  Lord 
direct  your  hearts  into  the  love  of  God  and  into  the 
patient  waiting  for  Christ."  (2  Thess.  3,  5.) 

But  this  divine  love  may  itself  be  personated  by 
a  mere  inert  affection  or  ])y  a  corrupt  one,  which  re- 
fuses to  be  subject  to  the  law  of  God,  neither  indeed 
can  be.  He  has  therefore  tauglit  us  that  obedience  to 
his  will  is  an  essential  characteristic  of  true  patience 
— "  Wait  on  the  Lord  "  and  "  kcej)  his  way^''  i.  e.  walk 
in  the  way  of  his  commandments,  are  inseparable 
precepts,  forming,  not  severally  but  together,  the  con- 
dition of  the  promise:  "he  shall  exalt  thee  to  inherit 
the  land."  (Ps.  37,  34.)  They  for  whom  glory,  and 
honour,  and  immortality,  and  eternal  life  are  reserved, 
are  they  who  seek  it,  not  simply  by  patient  contin- 
uance, but  b}'  patient  continuance  in  well-doing.  (Rom. 
2,  7.)  "  Ye  have  need  of  patience,  that  after  ye  have 
d^me  the  will  of  God,  ye  may  inherit  the  promise." 
(Hebrews  10,  3(3.)  The  patience  of  the  saints,  then,  is 
neither  an  inactive  nor  a  lawless  j  atience,  but  a  lov- 


300 


SERMONS. 


ing  and  obedient  patience.  The  same  perverse  tend- 
ency which  leads  men  to  convert  quiet  and  jyatient 
waiting  for  salvation,  into  absolute  inaction  or  a  dis- 
regard of  duty,  will  lead  them  to  convert  the  requisi- 
tion of  obedience  into  an  exhortation  to  reliance  on 
themselves  or  their  own  meritorious  service.  But  the 
patience  of. the  saints  is  a  believing  patience,  wdiicli 
not  only  believes  the  truth,  but  trusts  the  promises 
• — a  trust  implying  self-renunciation  and  despair  of 
self  salvation ;  for  without  these  an  implicit  trust  in 
God's  gi-ace  is  impossible.  It  is  through  faith  and 
patience^  a  patient  trust  and  a  believing  patience,  that 
the  saints  in  glory  have  inherited  the  promises.  From 
such  a  faith,  hope  is  inseparable.  He  who  would  not 
be  slothful,  but  a  follower  of  them  who  through  faith 
and  patience  inherit  the  promises,  must  do  so  by 
"  showing  diligence  "  in  every  duty  "  to  the  full  as- 
surance of  A^j9euntothe  end."  (Heb.  6,  11.)  The  pa- 
tience of  the  Scriptures  springs  neither  from  despair 
nor  fear,  but  from  hope,  w'hich  is  the  opposite  of  both. 
It  is  not  a  mere  quiet  endurance  of  the  present  or  a 
quiet  retrospect  of  the  past,  but  a  quiet  expectation  ; 
and  that  not  a  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment  and 
fiery  indignation,  but  an  expectation  of  good — a  hope 
— an  assui-ance  of  hope  ;  the  more  assured  the  hope 
the  more  perfect  the  patience  ;  patience  can  have  her 
pei-fect  work  only  where  there  is  full  assurance  of 
hope  to  the  end — "  For  if  we  hope  for  that  we  see 
not,  then  do  we  with  patience  wait  for  it."  (Romans 
8,  25.)  "  It  is  good  that  a  man  should  liope  and  quietly 
wait  for  the  salvation  of  the  Lord."  (Lamenta- 
tions 3,  26.) 


REVELATION  14,  12.  301 

The  faith  and  hope  which  are  thus  represented  as 
essential  to  the  patience  of  the  saints,  are  not  merely 
a  vague  trust  and  expectation  founded  u]3on  no  sufH- 
cient  reason,  or  simply  on  the  attributes  of  God,  or 
his  promises  in  general,  without  regard  to  the  restric- 
tions and  conditions  by  which  they  are  accompanied, 
but  a  specific  trust  and  expectation,  having  a  definite 
object,  reason  and  foundation.  We  have  seen  already 
that  the  exercise  of  Christian  patience  is  described  in 
Scripture  as  a  patient  waiting,  not  for  something  un-, 
known — not  for  evil — not  for  good  in  the  general,  but 
for  God.  "  Blessed  are  all  they  that  wait  for  //m." 
(Is.^  30,  IS.)  "  Eest  in  the  Lord  and  wait  patiently 
for  him."  "  Those  that  wait  on  tJie  Lord  shall  in- 
herit the  earth,"  "Wait  on  the  Lord  and  keep  his 
way."  "  Wait  on  the  Lord  and  he  shall  save  thee." 
"They  that  wait  on  the  Lord  shall  renew  their 
strength."  "  The  Lord  is  good  to  them  that  wait  for 
him.''''  "  They  shall  not  be  ashamed  that  wait  for 
•»?e."  Hero  is  a  definite  object  of  patient  expectation 
set  before  us.  It  is  not  mere  waiting.,  nor  mere  pa- 
tient waiting  i\vAt\\'\\\  answer  this  description,  but  pa- 
tient waiting  for  the  Lord,  by  loving  him,  obeying 
him,  believing  him,  confiding  in  him,  seeking  him. 
"  The  Lord  is  good  to  them  that  w^ait  for  him,  to  the 
soul  that  seeJceth  him." 

The  object  of  the  Christian's  patient  expectation  is 
made  still  more  definite.  It  might  be  asked  how  or 
why  should  men  wait  for  or  expect  the  Lord  ?  He 
will  be  forever  what  he  is.  He  will  be  forever,  as  he 
is  now,  intimately  present  to  his  creatures.  It'  the 
object  of  expectation  be  supposed  to  be  some  special 


302  SERMONS. 

or  extraordinary  nanifestation  of  liis  ^oresence  or  his 
power,  such  an  expectation  would  be  apt  to  prove 
fanatical,  and  instead  of  promoting  quietness  and  pa- 
tience would  more  probably  destroy  it.  But  the  defi- 
nite object  of  the  true  believer's  patient  expectation 
is  the  manifestation  of  God's  mercy  in  his  own  salva- 
tion, in  his  complete  and  final  deliverance  from  suf- 
fering and  from  sin.  "  Wait  on  the  Lord  and  he  will 
save  thee."  (Proverbs  20,  22.)  "  It  is  good  that  a 
man  should  hope  and  quietly  wait  for  the  salvation 
of  the  LordP  But  even  here,  the  expectation  of  the 
Christian  might  be  too  vague  to  secure  the  exercise 
of  genuine  patience.  lie  might  look  to  God  for  sal- 
vation, but  without  understanding  how  it  was  to  be 
procured  or  how  it  could  be  reconciled  with  the  divine 
justice.  While  this  doubt  or  ignorance  existed,  he 
could  hardly  rest  Avith  implicit  trust  even  on  God's 
mercy,  and  could  not  therefore  be  expected  to  pos- 
sess his  soul  in  patience.  The  only  remedy  for  this 
uneasiness  and  restlessness  of  spirit,  is  a  just  appre- 
hension, not  only  of  God's  nature  as  a  merciful  being, 
but  of  the  precise  way  in  which  his  mercy  can  and 
will  be  exercised,  in  which  he  can  be  just  and  yet 
justify  the  ungodly.  In  other  words,  the  soul  must 
not  only  see  God  as  he  is  in  himself,  but  see  him  in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself,  and  not  im- 
puting their  trespasses  unto  them  but  imputing  them 
to  Christ,  making  him  to  be  sin  for  us  who  knew  no 
sin,  that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God 
in  him.  The  man  whose  hope  is  fixed,  not  on  ab- 
stractions or  on  generalities,  not  even  on  the  attributes 
of  God,  as  such,  nor  on  his  promises  at  large,  but  on 


REVELATION  U,  12.  303 

the  positive,  distinct,  specific  promise  Df  justification 
and  salvation  even  to  the  chief  ot'sinners,who  7-cnounces 
his  own  rigliteousness  and  submits  to  the  rigliteous- 
ness  of  God,  by  a  simple  trust  in  the  righteousness  of 
Chris!:,  that  man  may  indeed  be  said  to  "  wait  for  the 
hope  of  righteousness  by  faith."  (Galatians  5,  5.)  The 
attitude  of  that  soul  is  indeed  one  of  waiting,  of  pa- 
tient waiting,  of  patient  waiting  for  God,  of  patient 
waiting  for  the  salvation  of  the  Lord,  of  "love  to  God 
and  patient  waiting  for  Christ." 

Beyond  this  it  is  impossible  to  go  in  making  the 
object  of  our  patient  expectation  either  greater  or 
more  definite.  He  who  waits  for  the  hope  of  right- 
eousness by  faith,  through  the  love  of  God  and  the 
patient  waiting  for  Christ,  may  have  a  faint  hope 
through  his  own  infirmity,  but  cannot  have  a  vague 
one  through  the  vagueness  of  the  object.  His  hope, 
and  by  necessary  consequence,  his  patience,  may  be 
variable,  fluctuating,  and  capricious,  but  not  from  any 
want  of  amplitude,  or  fulness,  or  distinctness  in  the 
object.  The  more  he  sees  of  that,  the  more  profoundly 
tranquil  and  unbroken  will  the  patience  of  his  spirit 
be.  If  we  know  not  what  we  hope  for,  or  if  we  doubt 
of  its  reality  or  excellence,  or  of  its  being  attainable 
by  us,  we  may  still  have  hope,  but  we  cannot  have 
patience.  Our  hope  will  be  a  restless,  an  unsteady, 
an  impatient,  a  capricious  hope.  "  But  if  we  hope 
for  that "  which,  though  "  we  see  not  we  believe"  and 
know  to  be  real  and  excellent  and  within  our  reach, 
"  then,  then,  do  we  with  patience  wait  for  it,"  not  be- 
cause we  no  longer  desire  it,  but  because  we  do  ;  not 
because  we  are  walling  to  postpone  the  full  fruition  of 


304  SERMONS. 

it,  but  beuaise  we  ai^  so  filled  with  the  joyful  ex- 
pectation and  the  assured  hope  of  obtaining  it  at  last, 
that  we  are  willing  to  wait  the  will  of  Him  on  whom 
it  all  depends,  and  whom  we  know  to  be  able  to  keep 
that  with  which  we  have  entrusted  him,  until  that 
day,  however  distant.  This  is  the  kind  of  hope  that 
generates  true  patience  ;  and  if  we  would  indeed  "  be 
followers  of  them  who  through  faith  and  patience  in- 
herit the  promises,"  let  us  lay  aside  our  fluctuating, 
short-lived  hopes,  M'hicli  are  extinguished  at  the  first 
blast  or  drowned  by  the  first  wave  that  washes  over  us, 
and  let  us  not  be  slothful,  but  diligent  in  duty,  in  the 
full  assurance  of  hope  unto  the  end.  (Hebrews  6, 11. 12.) 
We  have  now  seen  reason  to  conclude  that  the 
patience  of  the  true  believer,  though  a  state  of  rest  is 
one  of  rest  in  God,  and  therefore  not  a  slotliful  or  in- 
ert one,  but  a  diligent  and  active  one ;  not  lawless, 
but  obedient ;  not  compulsory,  but  willing  ;  not  fear- 
ful, but  loving ;  not  despondent,  but  hopeful ;  not 
vague,  but  definite  ;  not  resting  on  the  reason,  or  the 
fancy,  or  on  nothing,  but  on  God,  on  Christ,  on  sal- 
vation, on  the  righteousness  of  faith  ;  not  capricious 
and  short-lived,  but  constant,  uniform,  and  persever- 
ing. The  connection  which  has  been  already  pointed 
out  between  this  patience,  and  the  love  of  God  and 
faith  in  Christ,  is  a  suflicient  answer  to  the  question, 
whence  does  this  patience  spring,  by  what  is  it  pro- 
duced, and  how  shall  we  obtain  it?  Are  we  still 
without  the  love  of  God  and  faith  in  Christ  ?  Then 
patient  waiting  is  for  us  impossible.  "We  may  wait 
long,  we  may  wait  forever,  in  the  sense  of  doing 
nothing,  sinking  deeper  in  sin,  and  growing  harder 


REVELATION  14,  12.  305 

under  it;  but  if  n  the  sense  before  explained  we 
would  possess  oiii  toiils  in  patience,  we  must  believe, 
and  love,  and  hcpe.  Faitli  lies  at  the  foundation. 
AVliere  faith  is  wanting,  there  can  be  no  patience. 
With  little  faith  there  can  be  little  patience.  Not 
that  the  highest  degrees  of  faith  are  necessary  to  a 
genuine  patience ;  much  less  that  faith  which  is  as- 
sailed and  tried  can  breed  no  patience.  But  of  these 
trials,  patience  often  springs  ;  patience  not  only  in  the 
lower,  but  the  higher  sense ;  not  only  the  passive 
power  of  endurance,  but  the  active  power  of  humble, 
hopeful,  joyful,  and  believing  expectation  ;  "  only  let 
patience  have  her  perfect  work,  that  ye  may  be  per- 
fect and  entire,  wanting  nothing,  knowing  that  the 
trial  of  your  faith  woi^ketJi  patience.''''  (Jas.  1,  3.  4.) 
But  this  effect  supposes  an  internal  preparation, 
without  which  mere  external  trials  of  our  faith,  in- 
stead of  working  patience,  would  render  it  impossible. 
And  this  internal  preparation  can  be  wrought  by  noth- 
ing but  a  spiritual  influence  not  only  from  without,  but 
from  above,  from  heaven,  from  God.  Xone  but  tlie 
Holy  Ghost  can  work  in  our  darkened  and  corrupted 
heart,  that  humble,  yet  triumphant  expectation  of  de- 
liverance through  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  which 
is  the  life  of  spiritual  patience  "  For  we  through  the 
Spirit  wait  for  the  hope  of  righteousness  by  faith," 
(Gal.  5,  5.)P  This  hope,  and  the  faith  from  which  it 
springs,  and  the  lo-v  b  to  God  by  which  it  is  accom- 
panied, are  all  his  gift.  Patience  and  all  the  elements 
of  which  it  is  composed  must  come  alike  from  him. 
The  Lord  alone  can  "  direct  [our]  hearts  into  the  love 
of  God,  and  the  patient  waiting  for  Christ,"  (2  Thess. 


306 


SERMONS. 


3,  5.)  Tlie  sum  of  all  these  Scri]  tures  seems  to  he 
that  there  is  a  patience  necessary  to  the  Christian  life, 
a  patience  which  includes  resignation  and  endurance, 
but  includes  far  more ;  a  patience  which  God  ap- 
proves, and  upon  which  he  has  promised  his  blessing, 
as  a  source  of  strength  and  as  a  means  of  perfection ; 
that  this  patience  is  a  rest  in  God,  not  slothful  but 
diligent,  obedient,  loving,  and  believing,  springing 
from  the  hope  of  salvation  through  the  righteousness 
of  Christ  and  from  faitli  in  liim,  augmented  even  by 
tlie  trial  of  that  faith  when  it  is  genuine  and  does  not 
fail ;  a  patience  wrought  by  the  Holy  Spirit  directing 
our  hearts  into  the  love  of  God,  and  the  patience  of 
Christ,  or  patient  waiting  for  him. 

If  in  what  has  now  been  said,  tlie  declarations  of 
the  Scriptures  should  appear  to  be  distorted  from  their 
natural,  simple  meaning  as  applied  to  patience  in  the 
lower  sense,  let  it  be  considered  in  the  first  place, 
that  some  of  the  things  jDredicated  of  patience  in  the 
Word  of  God  are  wholly  inapplicable  to  a  mere  sub- 
missive temper,  power  of  endurance,  or  freedom  from 
uneasy  restlessness  and  discontent.  In  the  next  place, 
let  it  be  considered  that  the  higher  patience  which 
the  Word  of  God  describes,  and  which  the  grace  of 
God  produces,  so  far  from  being  opposed  to  the  one 
just  mentioned,  or  in  any  sense  at  variance  with  it, 
that  it  includes  it  as  the  whole  includes  t^e  part,  or 
as  the  spring  includes  the  stream,  or  the  plant  its 
fruit  or  flower.  While  it  still  stands  true,  attested 
both  by  Scripture  and  experience,  that  a  mere  philo- 
Bophical  or  natural  patience  can  never  lead  to  those 
results  which  are  ascribed   to  Christian  patience  in 


REVELATION  14,  12.  SQY 

the  "Word  of  God,  it  is  equally  true  and  equally  well 
ascertained,  that  this  is  the  only  certain  and  unfailing 
source  of  meekness,  resignation,  and  tranquillity  ac- 
cessible to  man.  llie  patience  of  wrong,  or  suffering, 
or  hope  defeiTcd,  which  springs  from  mere  prudential 
motives  or  from  self-control,  can  never  rise  higher  than 
its  fountain  in  the  heart,  and  must  therefore  prove 
unequal  to  the  gi-eatest  emergencies  of  human  life. 
But  break  a  man's  heart  with  a  conviction  of  sin, 
open  the  eyes  to  the  impending  danger,  make  him 
feel  his  incapacity  to  help  himself,  and  his  ur- 
gent need  of  superhuman  help,  then  let  him  see 
Christ  as  an  all-sufficient  Saviour,  just  such  a  Sav- 
iour as  he  needs,  and  has  at  last  been  made  to  wish 
for,  let  him  understand  and  appreciate  the  freeness  of 
the  gospel  offer,  let  him  close  with  it  in  hearty  ac- 
quiescence by  a  true  faith,  let  him  feel  the  love  of 
God  shed  abroad  in  his  heart  and  controlling  his  af- 
fections, let  him  see  the  hope  of  full  salvation,  and 
of  future  glory  streaking  the  horizon  like  tlie  dawn  of 
a  celestial  morning ;  on  this  dawn  let  his  eye  rest  with 
a  full  persuasion  that  the  day  is  breaking,  that  the 
sun  is  there,  that  it  will  rise,  that  it  will  soon  rise, 
and  with  this  conviction,  what  will  he  care  for  the 
expiring  of  the  few  flickering  tapers  that  surround 
him  ?  The  patience  which  will  best  enable  men  to 
bear  the  wrongs,  and  sorrows,  and  delays  of  life,  is 
patient  continuance  in  well-doing,  the  patient  waiting 
for  Christ,  the  patience  which  is  joint  heir  of  the 
promises  with  faith,  the  patience  of  hope,  which  waits 
for  things  unseen,  looks  for  the  hope  of  righteousness 
by  faith,  and  quietly  waits  for  the  salvation  of  the 


308 


SERMONS. 


Lord.  Where  tliis  exists,  the  forgiveness  of  mjurieSj 
the  endurance  of  sufferings,  the  loss  of  all  things,  are, 
comparatively  easy. 

If,  then,  we  would  exercise  the  lower  forms  of  pa- 
tience, we  must  do  it  by  securing  the  possession  of 
the  higher.     If  faith  and  repentance  are  unknown  to 
our  experience,  we  must  repent  and  believe  before  we 
can  expect  to  bear  and  forbear  even  in  this  world's 
matters  with  a  truly  Christian  spirit.     If  we  have  re- 
pented and  believed,  we  must  learn  to  love  and  hope, 
as  necessary  elements  of  patience.    If  we  have  already 
studied  in  this  school,  and  begun  to  practice  its  celes- 
tial precepts,  let  us  show  the  same  diligence  to  the 
full  assurance  of  hope  unto  the  end ;  let  patience  have 
its  perfect  work,  that  we  may  be  perfect  and  entire, 
wanting  nothing.     Let  us  wait  on  the  Lord  and  keep 
his  way.     Let  us  rest  in  the  Lord  and  wait  patiently 
for  him.     Let  us  hope  and  quietly  wait  for  his  salva- 
tion.    Let  us  through  the  Spirit  wait  for  the  hope  of 
righteousness  by  faith.    Let  us  by  patient  continuance 
in  well-doing,  seek  for  glory,  and  honour,  and  immor- 
tality.    If  we  hope  for  what  we  see  not,  let  us  with 
patience  wait  for  it,  and  ere  long  we  shall  see  it.    We 
shall  see  it.     Faith  shall  be  turned  into  sight.     The 
work  of  patience  shall  be  done  forever ;  and  while  the 
patience  of  the  philosophers  and  worldlings  shall  be 
seen  in  all  its  hollowness  and  emptiness,  a  voice  from 
heaven  shall  say  even  of  the  weakest  and  unworthiest 
of  us  who  have  thus  preserved  our  souls  in  patience, 
"  Here  is  the  patience  of  the  saints  ;  here  are  they  that 
keep   the  commandments  of  God  and  the  faith  of 
Jesus." 


XVII. 

2  Timothy  2,  9. — The  word  of  God  is  not  bound. 

This  is  the  language  of  a  prisoner  at  Eorae.  The 
imperial  city  had  seen  many  a  captive  brought  in 
singly  or  to  grace  the  triumph  of  her  conquering 
chiefs.  In  comparison  with  these  there  was  little  to 
attract  attention  in  the  case  of  a  Cilician  Jew,  sent 
by  the  Roman  prefect  of  Judea  to  be  tried  before  the 
judgment-seat  of  Caesar  upon  charges  pertaining  to 
the  Jews'  religion.  To  the  Romans,  such  a  case  was 
too  familiar  and  too  unimportant  in  itself  to  excite 
much  interest,  especially  before  the  prisoner's  actual 
appearance  at  the  emperor's  tribunal.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  a  few  official  functionaries,  and  of  his  own 
brethren,  who  were  numerous  in  Rome,  it  is  probable 
that  few  were  aware  of  his  presence  or  even  his  ex- 
istence. It  was  little  imagined  by  the  soldiers  whose 
swords  rattled  on  the  ancient  pavement  of  the  street 
where  Paul  dwelt,  or  by  the  vast  mixed  multitude  of 
citizens  in  gown  or  armour,  who  continually  passed 
before  his  prison,  that  wathin  those  doors  sat  one 
whose  influence  M'as  to  be  felt  throughout  the  empire, 
and  beyond  its  furthest  pale,  for  ages;  one  who,  as 
well  by  self-devotion  as  by  divine  appointment,  was 


gjQ  SERMONS. 

the  Apostle  of  he  Gentiles,  the  official  founder  of  the 
Christian  church  among  the  nations. 

He  was  now  a  prisoner,  and  this  his  actual  con 
dition,  hore  a  significant  analogy  to  some  points  of 
his  earlier  history.  In  lineage  and  breeding  he  was 
a  thorough  Jew — a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews — a  Phari- 
see of  the  straitest  sect — brought  up  in  Jerusalem  at 
the  feet  of  Gamaliel,  a  famous  doctor  of  the  law. 
His  attachment  to  the  faith  of  his  fathers  was  attest- 
ed by  his  zeal  in  opposition  to  what  seemed  to  threaten 
it.  In  the  first  persecution  of  the  Christians  at  Jeru- 
salem, he  was  present,  at  least  as  a  spectator.  The 
upper  garments  of  those  who  stoned  the  protomartyr 
Stephen,  were  laid  at  the  feet  of  Saul  of  Tarsus.  This 
sight,  instead  of  softening  his  heart  towards  the  suf- 
ferers or  rousing  his  indignation  against  the  persecu- 
tors, seems  to  have  kindled  in  his  own  breast  the  flame 
of  an  intolerant  zeal.  Our  next  view  of  him  is  in  the 
service  of  the  persecuting  priesthood — making  havoc 
of  the  church — entering  into  every  house,  haling  men 
and  women  and  committing  them  to  prison.  A  little 
after  he  appears  again,  still  breathing  out  threaten- 
ings  and  slaughter  against  the  disciples  of  the  Lord, 
soliciting  employment  as  their  enemy,  volunteering 
his  services  to  the  high  priest,  and  demanding  letters 
to  the  synagogues  of  foreign  cities,  that  if  he  found 
any  of  this  M'ay,  whether  they  were  men  or  women, 
he  might  bring  them  hound  unto  Jerusalem. 

Tliis  was  known  to  Christians  abroad  before  he 
actually  came  among  them,  for  when  Ananias  received 
the  divine  command  to  visit  him  and  restore  his  sight, 
he  expostulated  saying,  "  Lord,  I  have  heard  by  many 


2  TDIOTHY  2,  9.  311 

of  this  man,  how  much  evil  he  hath  done  to  thy  saints  at 
Jerusalem,  and  here  he  hath  authority  from  the  chief 
priests  to  bi7ida\\  that  call  on  thy  name."  So  after  he  be- 
gan to  preacli  Christ  in  the  synagogues  of  Damascus,  all 
that  heard  him  were  amazed  and  said,  "  Is  not  this  he 
that  destroyed  them  which  called  on  this  name  in  Jeru- 
salem, and  came  hither  for  that  intent  that  he  might 
bring  them  bound  unto  the  chief  priests  ?  " 

The  prominence  given  in  this  narrative  to  Paul's 
eagerness  in  linding,  i.  e.  arresting  or  imprisoning  all 
converts  to  the  new  religion,  is  not  an  accidental  one. 
It  reappears  in  his  own  statement  of  his  conversion 
before  the  multitude  on  the  castle-stairs  in  Jerusalem  : 
"  I  persecuted  this  way  unto  the  death,  hinding  and 
delivering  into  prisons  both  men  and  women.  I  went 
to  Damascus  to  bring  them  M'hich  were  there,  hound 
unto  Jerusalem."  And  in  answer  to  the  Lord's  com- 
mand to  go  forth — "  Lord,  they  know  that  I  itnpris- 
oned  and  beat  in  every  synagogue  them  that  believed 
on  thee.  And  again  at  Cesarea,  before  Festus  and 
Agrippa,  many  of  the  saints  did  I  shut  up  in  prison." 
To  the  circumstance  thus  marked  in  his  own  recol- 
lection of  his  persecuting  ministry,  it  pleased  God 
that  there  should  be  something  corresponding  in  his 
later  history  as  a  Christian  preacher  and  confessor.  In 
the  catalogue  of  his  sufferings  for  Christ,  one  item  is 
in  prisons  more  frequent.  When  he  was  bound  with 
thongs  jipon  the  castle-stairs,  it  was  but  the  begin- 
ning of  this  series  of  captivities,  the  last  of  which  was 
terminated  only  by  his  martyrdom. 

Thus  he  who  once  breathed  only  to  bind  the  fol- 
lowers of  Christ,  became  himself  the  prisoner  of  the 


312  SERMONS. 

Lord,  "  for  ^vliose  sake,"  said  he,  "  I  am  bound  with 
this  chain."  How  much  his  own  mind  was  affected 
by  this  providential  coincidence,  is  clear  from  the 
frequency  and  point  of  his  allusions  to  it  in  his  epis- 
tles, from  the  earliest  in  date,  to  this  to  Timothy,  in 
all  probability  the  last  of  all — "  wherein  I  suffer 
trouble  as  an  evil-doer  even  unto  honds^  but  the  word 
OF  GOD  IS  NOT  BOUND,"  i.  ^.,  though  I  who  prcach  it  am 
a  prisoner,  the  word  itself  is  not  confined  and  cannot 
be.  As  he  once  said  in  writing  to  the  Koman  Chris- 
tians, "  let  God  be  true  but  every  man  a  liar,"  so  here 
he  seems  to  say,  "  let  me  abide  a  prisoner  forever,  if 
the  glorious  gospel  may  but  run,  have  free  course 
and  be  glorified."  This  was  the  prisoner's  consolation 
in  captivity — a  consolation  at  once  rational  and  trust- 
ful, pregnant  with  lessons  of  practical  wisdom,  some 
of  which  it  may  not  be  inappropriate  or  unjustifiable 
to  consider  in  detail. 

1.  The  first  idea  suggested  by  the  words  in  their 
original  connection,  is  that  Paul's  incarceration  did 
not  hinder  his  own  personal  exertions  as  a  preacher 
of  the  gospel.  His  countrymen  and  others  Avere  al- 
lowed access  to  him.  Through  the  wise  and  tolerant 
indulgence  of  the  Roman  government,  he  "  dwelt  two 
whole  years  in  his  own  hired  house,  and  received  all 
that  came  in  unto  him,  preaching  the  kingdom  of 
God,  and  teaching  those  things  which  concern  the 
Lord  Jesns  Christ,  with  all  confidence,  no  man  for- 
bidding him."  Though  he  was  bound,  therefore,  the 
word  of  God  was  not — not  even  as  to  his  personal 
share  in  its  promulgation. 

This  was,  of  course,  a  precious  consolation  to  the 


2  TlilOTHY  2,  9.  323 

captive.  How  inucli  wonld  the  pains  of  his  confinement 
have  beeii  aggravated  if,  in  addition  to  the  restraint 
upon  his  limbs  or  his  movements,  his  mout^  had  been 
stopped  as  an  ambassador  of,  Christ.  How  fervently 
may  we  suppose  that  he  would  then  have  prayed,  and 
called  on  others  to  pray  for  him,  that  his  mouth 
might  be  opened,  that  utterance  might  be  given  him, 
to  speak  freely  as  he  ought  to  speak.  But  such  facil- 
ity he  did  possess  ;  and,  in  the  joyful  consciousness 
of  this  advantage,  he  here  puts  the  bane  and  anti- 
dote together — AYlierein  I  sutler  trouble  as  an  evil-doer 
even  unto  bonds,  but  the  word  of  God  is  not  bound. 

The  practical  lesson  taught  by  Paul's  example,  in 
this  view  of  it,  is  obvious.  It  is  a  reproof  of  our  dis- 
position to  regard  external  disadvantages,  restraints, 
and  disabilities  as  either  affording  an  immunity  from 
blame  if  we  neglect  to  use  the  power  still  left  us,  or 
discouraging  the  hope  of  any  good  effect  from  using 
it.  Because  we  cannot  do  all  that  we  would,  we  are 
too  apt  to  do  nothing;  or,  because  we  cannot  com- 
mand the  means  with  which  we  are  familiar,  we  are 
often  ready  to  abandon  the  whole  enterprise.  In  this 
disposition  there  is  more  pride  than  humility.  It  is 
tainted  with  the  selfish  ambition  of  a  Cesar,  who 
must  be  all  or  nothing.  It  is  also  condemned  by 
the  experience  of  the  world.  Some  of  the  greatest 
achievements  in  science  and  the  arts,  in  warfare  and 
in  government,  in  morals  and  philanthropy,  have  been 
effected  in  the  absence  of  what  some  men  would  re- 
gard as  indispensable  appliances,  and  in  a  wise  con- 
tempt of  them.  It  is  not  the  music  or  the  uniform, 
the  burnished  metal  or  the  flaunting  flag,  that  secures 

VOL.  II. — 14 


3U 


SERMONS. 


tlie  v'ctorv,  liowever  useful  thcv  may  be  in  their  own 
places.  Had  they  been  the  indispensable  conditions 
of  success,%tlie  tattered  and  unshod  champions  of  our 
own  independence  must  have  yielded  to  the  brilliant 
and  well-appointed  forces  of  the  enemy.  Kay,  the 
very  loss  or  interruption  of  accustomed  comforts  and 
accommodations  has  been  sometimes  the  not  remote 
occasion  of  a  victory. 

It  may  be  so,  too,  in  the  spiritual  warfare.  Men 
may  form  the  habit  of  regarding  the  conventional  fa- 
cilities to  which  they  are  accustomed  even  in  benevo- 
lent exertion  as  essential  means  to  the  desired  end, 
and  when  these  are  withdrawn,  may  look  upon  the 
case  as  hopeless — as  if  Panl,  when  made  a  prisoner  at 
Home,  had  given  up  all  for  lost,  and  ceased  to  speak 
or  labour  for  the  cause  of  Christ — as  if  he  had  said, 
I  am  bonnd  and  the  gospel  is  bound  with  me.  It 
must  share  my  bondage  and  continue  shut  up  in 
the  walls  of  my  compulsory  abode.  Such  a  course 
would  not  have  been  irrational  or  sinful  on  the  prin- 
ciples which  many  of  us  Christians  seem  to  hold  ;  but 
it  was  Avholly  inconsistent  with  the  sentiments  and 
character  of  Panl.  AVhen  lie  could  not  do  all,  he  still 
did  what  he  could  ;  he  had  learned  both  to  abound 
and  to  suffer  need  ;  he  could  be  all  things  to  all  men, 
that  he  might  save  some.  When  he  could  not  preach 
Christ  as  a  freeman,  he  must  preach  him  only  the 
more  zealously  as  an  ambassador  in  bonds.  AVhen 
forced  to  say,  Wherein  I  suffer  trouble  as  an  evil-doer 
even  unto  bonds,  he  could  cheerfully  and  thankfully 
add,  "  But  the  word  of  God  is  not  bound." 

2.  It  was  still  true,  however,  that  Paul's  bonds  di- 


2  TIMOTHY  2,  9.  3;15 

minished  liis  efficiency.  "While  he  avoided  the  ex- 
treme of  abandoning  all  hope,  he  equally  avoided 
that  of  foolishly  imagining  that  he  could  personally 
do  as  much  for  the  diffusion  of  the  Gospel  in  his  own 
hired  house  at  Rome,  as  in  the  wide  sweep  of  liis 
itinerant  apostleship.  This  was  impossible,  as  he 
well  knew ;  and  knowing  it,  he  needed  something 
more  to  comfort  him  in  his  confinement  than  the  con- 
sciousness that,  though  he  could  no  longer  do  as  much 
as  he  had  once  done,  he  could  still  do  something.  Tliis 
might  be  enough  for  him,  but  it  was  not  enough  for 
the  honour  of  his  master.  It  might  satisfy  his  con- 
science, but  it  could  not  satisfy  his  heart  or  appease 
the  cravings  of  his  thirst  for  the  salvation  of  the  world. 
His  work,  though  not  yet  at  an  end,  was  interrupted, 
and  how  should  his  lack  of  service  be  supplied?  The 
answer  is  a  plain  one  :  by  the  labours  of  others.  This 
M'as  a  large  ingredient  in  the  cup  of  the  apostle's  con- 
solation. He  rejoiced  not  only  in  the  labours  of 
others  during  his  comparative  inaction,  but  in  that 
inaction  as  the  occasion,  the  exciting  cause,  of  other 
men's  exertions.  Nay,  he  could  even  go  so  far  as  to 
consent  to  be  wronged  and  dishonoured,  if  by  that 
means  his  ruling  passion  might  be  gratified.  To  the 
Macedonian  Christians  in  Philippi  he  writes  as  fol- 
lows from  his  confinement  in  the  city  of  the  Cesars: 
"  Brethren,  I  would  ye  should  understand  that  the 
things  which  happened  unto  me  have  fallen  out  rather 
unto  the  furtherance  of  the  gospel,  so  that  my  bonds 
in  Christ  are  manifest  in  all  the  palace  and  in  all 
other  places ;  and  many  of  the  brethren  in  the  Lord, 
waxing  confident  by  my  bonds,  are  much  mere  bold 


316  SERMONS. 

to  Speak  the  A'crd  without  fear.  Some  indeed  preach 
Christ  even  of  envy  and  strife,  and  some  also  of  good- 
■^TJii — tije  one  preach  Christ  of  contention,  not  sin- 
cerely, thinking  to  add  affliction  to  my  bonds,  but 
the  others  of  love,  knowing  that  I  am  set  for  the  de- 
fence of  the  gospel.  What  then  ?  Notwithstanding 
every  way,  whether  in  pretence  or  in  truth,  Clirist  is 
preached,  and  I  therein  do  rejoice,  yea,  and  will  re- 
joice, for  I  know  that  this  shall  turn  to  my  salvation 
through  your  prayer,  and  the  supply  of  the  spirit  of 
Christ  Jesus,  according  to  my  earnest  expectation  and 
my  hope,  that  in  nothing  I  shall  be  ashamed,  but  that 
with  all  boldness,  as  always,  so  now  also,  Christ  shall 
be  magnified  in  my  body,  whether  it  be  by  life  or  by 
death ;  for  to  me,  to  live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is 
gain." 

"What  is  the  principle  involved  in  this  sublime 
profession  of  heroic  devotion  to  the  cause  of  Christ? 
Plainly  this,  that  while  Paul  was  even  ready  to  mag- 
nify his  office  as  apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  and  correctly 
appreciated  both  the  honour  and  the  difficulty  of  the 
work  assigned  to  him,  he  never  dreamed  that  it  was 
meant  to  be  entirely  dependent  upon  his  individual 
activity.  It  was  not  at  himself,  but  at  the  world, 
that  he  continually  looked.  He  regarded  his  own 
labours  as  important  only  so  far  and  so  long  as  it 
pleased  God  to  employ  them  as  means  to  the  ap- 
pointed end ;  and  when  they  seemed  to  lose  this  pe- 
culiar relation  to  the  cause,  instead  of  lamenting  that 
his  agency  was  suspended,  or  dreading  the  success  of 
any  other  than  his  own,  he  loses  sight  of  his  own 
share  in  tlie  great  work,  to  look  at  the  great  work  it- 


2  TIMOTHY  2,  9.  317 

self,  as  something  clear  to  liim,  yet  independent  of 
him,  which  he  was  willing  to  promote  either  by  his 
life  or  death,  as  God  might  please  to  order,  but  which 
he  desired  to  see  promoted  at  all  costs  and  at  all  haz- 
ards, wdiether  by  himself,  or  by  his  friends,  or  by  his 
enemies. 

This  is  a  spirit  worthy  of  a  hero,  nay,  of  an  apos- 
tle ;  of  one  who  could  and  did  rejoice  that  Christ  was 
preached,  by  whomsoever,  and  whose  highest  hope 
was  that  Christ  might  be  magnified  in  him,  whether 
actively  or  passively,  by  life  or  by  death.  Here  too, 
the  lesson  to  ourselves  is  obvious.  The  apostle's  ex- 
ample ought  to  shame  us  out  of  all  undue  reliance 
upon  certain  human  agencies  and  influences.  Espe- 
cially ought  this  to  be  the  case  in  relation  to  our  own 
share  of  the  work  to  be  performed  for  the  honour  of 
God  and  the  salvation  of  the  world.  If  Paul,  with 
his  apostolic  dignity,  confirmed  by  all  the  signs  of  an 
apostle,  regarded  his  own  personal  exertions  only  as 
appointed  means  wuth  which  the  sovereign  power 
that  prescribed  them  could  as  easily  dispense,  what 
are  we,  that  we  should  think  ourselves  or  our  assist- 
ance necessary  to  the  divine  purpose,  or  that  purpose 
in  danger  of  defeat  and  disappointment  at  any  mo- 
mentary interruption  of  our  share  in  its  promotion, 
or  that  we  should  frown  upon  the  emulous  exertions  of 
our  neighbours  in  the  same  cause,  as  a  kind  of  en- 
croachment upon  our  prerogative,  an  insolent  intru- 
sion on  our  chosen  and  appropriated  field  of  labour  % 
How  completely  does  the  spirit  of  the  great  apostolic 
captive  put  to  shame  all  such  exclusiveness  and  self- 
ish  emulation,  as    displayed   too  often  by  the  iudi- 


518 


SERMONS. 


vidufil   labottrer,  and  still  more  l)y  l.vi-ge  bodies  of 
sncii  hibonrers,  liuwever  zealons  and  sincere. 

This  last  is  but  another  form  of  tiic  same  error, 
more  insidious,  because  clothed  in  the  garb  of  hu- 
mility. He  ^vho  professes  to  distrust,  nay,  who  really 
distrusts  himself  as  insufficient  for  this  work,  may  be 
guilty  of  an  undue  reliance  upon  others,  either  singly 
or  collectively.  However  little  he  may  look  for  from 
his  own  individual  exertions,  he  may  repose  an  un- 
commanded  confidence  in  those  of  his  neighbonrs,  or 
his  leaders,  or  in  the  united  strength  of  his  party,  of 
his  church,  or  of  his  nation;  and  to  these  corporate 
bodies  may  transfer  the  idolatrous  trust  and  admira- 
tion which  he  dare  not  arrogate  to  himself  But  this 
kind  of  dependence  upon  human  strength  for  that 
which  God  alone  can  do,  though  less  oft'ensive  in  its 
manifestations,  is  equally  at  variance  with  a  spirit  of 
true  faith,  and  equally  condemned  by  Paul's  exam- 
ple. The  principle  which  actuated  and  controlled  his 
conduct  comprehends  in  the  wide  sco|)e  of  its  a])pli- 
cation  all  dependence  upon  human  agencies  as  abso- 
lutely or  intrinsically  necessary  to  the  execution  of 
the  divine  plan,  whether  the  objects  of  this  misplaced 
trust  be  individuals  or  communities — ourselves  or 
others.  The  j)rimary  meaning  of  Paul's  joyful  ex- 
clamation is,  that  thf)ugh  he  was  a  priscuier,  the  word 
of  God  was  free,  but  it  obviously  in)]dies  that  though 
all  the  i)reachers  of  the  word  were  altogether  like 
him,  not  even  excepting  his  bonds,  it  would  still  have 
boon  true,  that  the  ^\■ord  of  God  Mas  not  their  fellow 
ca])tive,  but  might  run  and  be  glorified.  Though  I 
and  every  other  human  instrument  be  paralyzed  or 


2  TIMOTHY  2,  9.  319 

Bhattered,  God  can  perform  his  own  work  in  his  own 
way  ;  tliongh  I  and  every  other  messenger  endure 
affliction  even  unto  bonds,  the  ivord  of  God  is  not 
hound.  There  is  no  need,  however,  of  our  stopping  even 
here.  AYe  are  not  required  to  content  ourselves  with 
knowing  that  the  word  of  God  is  not  bound  to  the 
hand  or  foot  of  any  human  instrument  however 
eminent,  however  usefuh  Let  us  view  the  teaching 
of  the  text  in  its  uttermost  extent,  and  sound  it  in  its 
lowest  dejDths,  or  rather  to  the  depth  of  our  capacity, 
even  though  it  should  conduct  us  to  what  may  at  first 
sight  seem  a  more  abstract  and  artificial  view  of  the 
apostle's  meaning. 

One  of  the  most  important  lessons  couched  in  this 
significant  expression  or  deducible  from  it,  would  be 
lost  upon  us  if  we  went  no  further.  I  refer  to  the  doc- 
trine that  the  truth  of  God  is  independent,  not  only 
of  particular  human  agents,  but  of  all  human  systems 
of  opinion,  organizations,  and  methods  of  procedure. 
This  must  be  apprehended  and  believed  as  a  distinct 
proposition.  We  may  grant  the  insignificance  of  any 
particular  personal  agency,  and  yet  rely  upon  the  in- 
trinsic efficacy  of  certain  theories  and  certain  plans, 
whatever  be  the  agency  by  which  they  are  reduced 
to  practice.  As  in  politics,  so  in  religion,  and  es- 
pecially in  its  active  benevolence,  the  maxim  "  princi- 
ples not  men"  may  be  delusive,  by  leading  only  from 
one  error  to  another,  by  withdrawing  confidence  from 
personal  advantages  of  character  or  talent,  only  to  fix 
it  the  more  blindly  on  the  real  or  imaginary  attributes 
of  systems,  schemes,  contrivances,  and  methods.  It 
is  important,  therefore,  that  the  words  of  the  apostle 


320  SERMONS.      ■ 

should  be  taken  in  their  widest  sense,  as  intimatiig 
that  "  the  word  of  God  is  not  bound"  with  this  cliain 
any  more  than  witli  tlie  others.  The  diffusion  and 
triumph  of  the  truth  are  not  suspended  on  our  methods 
of  promoting  them,  however  excellent.  The  truth 
we  circulate  is  not  a  lifeless,  inert  mass,  which  we 
may  shape,  and  regulate,  and  bear  about  at  our  dis- 
cretion or  caprice  ;  it  is  a  living  element,  which  we 
can  neither  generate  nor  kill,  but  to  which  God  allows 
us  the  honour  of  furnishing  conductors  and  assigning 
a  direction  with  a  view  to  certain  applications.  What- 
ever reason  we  may  have  for  cherishing  our  own  ac- 
customed modes  of  doing  this,  Ave  must  still  remem- 
ber that,  in  reference  to  these  as  well  as  other  things, 
"  the  word  of  God  is  not  bound." 

There  may  seem  to  be  but  slight  ground  or  practi- 
cal necessity  for  this  admonition  ;  but  the  fact  is  other- 
wise. This  error  is  a  real  and  an  operative  one.  Its 
tendency,  if  not  directly  to  relax  effort,  is  to  weaken 
faith,  discourage  hope,  damp  zeal,  contract  the  views, 
and  thereby  most  effectually  stop  the  wheels  of  all 
great  enterprises.  The  error  itself  does  not  lie  in  the 
contrivance  of  ingenious  and  effectual  plans,  or  in 
their  zealous  execution,  but  in  looking  upon  their  op- 
eration and  results  as  the  aggregate  effect  produced 
by  saving  truth ;  as  if  one  should  suppose  that  there 
was  no  light  in  the  world  but  that  employed  in  opti- 
cal experiments,  and  no  electric,  or  magnetic,  or  gal 
vanic  influence  but  that  subjected  to  our  senses  by 
the  pile  or  battery.  It  is  an  honour  and  a  happiness 
to  be  allowed  to  gather  up  a  portion  of  revealed  truth, 
as  the  Hebrews  gathered  manna  in  their  vessels,  and 


2  TIMOTHY  2,  9.  321 

to  cast  it  into  certain  moulds  without  destroying  its  vi- 
tality or  virtue,  and  to  blend  it  with  otlier  things  con- 
genial though  distinct,  and  to  clothe  it  in  legitimate 
though  uncommanded  forms  of  our  own  choosing,  and 
to  apply  it  as  we  find  expedient  for  our  own  advan- 
tage or  for  that  of  others.  But  we  must  not  let  this 
privilege  mislead  us  into  the  delusion  of  imagining, 
that  this  is  all  the  truth  of  God  can  do,  or  rather  that 
there  is  no  truth  at  all  except  as  we  choose  to  exhibit 
or  difl'use  it;  that  if  our  machinery  should  burst  or 
fall  to  pieces,  it  would  leave  the  world  to  spiritual 
darkness  and  starvation.  In  short,  that  the  word  of 
God  is  bound  to  us  and  to  our  methods  of  preserving 
and  diffusing  it.  In  this,  as  in  the  other  senses  here- 
tofore considered,  be  assured,  my  hearers,  that  "  the 
word  of  God  is  not  bound," 

The  mistaken  views,  of  which  I  am  now  speaking, 
arise  from  natural  and  moral  causes,  some  of  which 
are  easily  detected.  Our  ideas  of  value,  from  their 
very  nature,  are  connected  with  our  customary  modes 
of  measurement  and  estimation.  Whatever  we  can 
count  or  weigh,  we  own  to  have  a  real  tangible  exist- 
ence. Whatever  we  can  thus  treat  to  a  certain  point, 
even  without  being  able  to  include  the  whole,  we  look 
upon  as  vast  in  its  extent  or  worth,  but  no  less  real 
than  if  we  could  measure  it  by  pounds  or  inches. 

But  that  whicla  cannot  be  subjected  to  our  meas- 
urement at  all,  we  are  disposed  to  reckon  as  imagin- 
ary, or  as  only  half  existing,  not  entitled  to  a  place 
among  the  tangible  realities  by  which  we  are  sur- 
rounded. The  very  air  we  breathe,  because  it  is  in- 
visible, is  apt  to  be  regarded  by  the  uninstructed 
vol.  J  I. — 14* 


322  SERMONS. 

mind,  as  almost  a  nonentity ;  and  even  when  it  proves 
its  own  existence,  when  it  sweeps  over  the  earth  in  tlie 
tornado,  tearing  up  whole  forests,  some  would  rather 
trace  the  terrible  effect  to  causes  utterly  unknown, 
than  to  an  agent  in  immediate  contact  with  their  bo- 
dies, yet  apparently  beyond  the  reach  of  their  inves- 
tigation. It  is  true  that  some  of  these  mysterious 
agencies  in  nature  have  been  brought  to  bear  with 
wonderful  effect  upon  the  interests  of  real  life.  The 
indomitable  light  is  made  to  do  the  slow  work  of  the 
artist's  pencil  in  a  moment  of  time,  and  the  flitting 
shadow  is  arrested  in  its  flight  and  rendered  perma- 
nent. An  unsubstantial  vapour  now  replaces  on  the 
ocean  and  the  land,  on  the  road  and  in  the  factory,  a 
vast  amount  of  aniinal  exertion.  A  power  once  reck- 
oned too  mysterious  for  scrutiny,  or  even  for  belief, 
now  apes  the  wonder  of  annihilating  time  and  space, 
and  instantaneously  conveys  men's  whispers  not  only 
over  continents  but  under  oceans.  Eflects  so  real 
must  have  real  causes,  and  the  world  reluctantly  ad- 
iiiits  the  fact. 

Now,  there  are  triumphs  of  advancing  knowledge 
ill  the  field  of  natural  discovery — her  triumphs  over 
ignorant  and  stubborn  prepossessions.  And  why  may 
not  the  truth,  though  in  itself  immutable,  gain  kindred 
victories  in  morals  and  religion  ?  Why  should  they 
who  no  longer  venture  to  dispute  the  existence  and 
activity  of  physical  causes,  which  they  cannot  esti- 
mate or  measure,  still  persist  in  believing  that  the 
truth  of  God  is  only  operative  through  their  channels 
and  in  their  machinery — that  when  they  have  com- 
puted the  amount  of  saving  knowledge  spread  through 


2  TIMOTHY  2,  9.  323 

theas,  by  counting  the  words,  or  the  pages,  or  the 
volumes  that  contain  it,  the}'  have  stated  the  sum  total 
of  the  cleansing,  strengthening,  illuminating  influence 
exerted  by  the  truth  upon  this  evil  world  ?  The  doc- 
trine which  I  would  oppose  to  this  delusion  is  the 
simple  doctrine  that  "  the  word  of  God  is  not  bound  " 
or  restricted,  in  its  salutary  virtue,  to  the  formal  and 
appreciable  power  exerted  upon  churches  and  Chris- 
tian communities,  or  through  the  ordinary  modes  and 
channels  of  religions  influence,  however  great  this 
power  may  be,  however  indispensable  to  the  comple- 
tion of  the  work  which  God  is  working  in  our  days. 
We  may  even  admit  that  it  is  relatively  almost  all, 
but  it  is  still  not  quite  all ;  and  the  residuary  power 
may  be  greater,  vastly  greater,  than  it  seems  to  us 
before  attentively  considering  the  other  less  direct, 
less  formal,  less  appreciable  ways,  in  which  the  word 
of  God,  the  truth  revealed  in  Scripture,  is  at  this  mo- 
ment operating  on  the  condition  of  society,  apart  from 
its  constant  and  direct  communication  through  the 
pulpit,  the  school,  and  the  religious  press.  These  are 
the  agencies,  indeed,  by  which  sound  doctrine  is  main- 
tained in  your  churches  and  impressed  upon  your 
youth  ;  and  this,  in  its  perfection,  is  the  highest  end 
that  can  be  wrought  by  the  difi'usion  of  the  truth. 

But  let  us  not  forget  that  much  may  be  efiected 
even  when  this  highest  end  is  not  attained.  In  many 
a  heresy,  for  instance,  how  much  truth  may  be  min- 
gled, saving  it  from  absolute  coiruption,  and  perhaps 
the  souls  of  those  who  hold  it,  from  perdition.  Infi- 
delity, in  all  its  forms,  affects  to  treat  religion  with 
contempt  as  the  oflspring  of  ignorance  ;  but  its  own 


324:  SERMONS. 

discoveries  are  mere  mutilations  of  the  truths  which 
it  has  stolen  from  its  despised  enemy.  The  attempt 
of  infidelity  to  do  away  with  the  great  doctrines  of 
religion,  is  the  prowess  of  a  dwarf  mounting  on  a 
giant's  shoulders  to  put  out  his  eye.  Tlie  best  con- 
structed system  of  unscriptural  philosophy,  however 
close  and  dark,  still  has  its  crevices,  and  through 
these  some  light  cannot  fail  to  percolate,  if  only  to  be 
seized  upon  as  proof  that  the  system  is  not  one  of 
darkness  after  all. 

The  same  thing  is  true  as  to  those  slighter  and 
more  trivial,  but  for  that  very  reason  more  eifecti\e 
forms  of  unbelief,  which  are  propagated  not  in  philo- 
sophical abstractions,  but  in  poetry,  romance,  and 
other  current  literature.  The  novelist  or  journalist 
who,  with  a  scorn  of  Christianity  only  to  be  equalled 
by  his  ignorance  of  what  it  teaches,  undertakes  to 
show  his  readers  "  a  more  excellent  way,"  often  brings 
them  at  last  to  some  elementary  truth,  already  wrought 
into  the  mind  and  stamped  upon  the  memory  of  every 
child  who  reads  the  Bible.  What  a  tribute  is  this  to 
the  pervading,  penetrating  force  of  truth,  that  it  can 
find  its  way  even  into  such  dark  places,  and  at  least 
serve  to  make  the  darkness  visible  !  Look  too  at  the 
schemes  of  civil  government  and  social  order  framed 
by  irreligious  men,  or  unbelievers  in  the  Scriptures, 
and  observe  these  two  facts  easily  established :  that 
every  departure  from  the  lessons  of  God's  word  is  a 
demonstrable  evil  or  defect  in  relation  even  to  the 
lower  object  aimed  at ;  and  that  every  thing  condu- 
cive to  a  good  end  in  the  system  is  an  adaptation  of 
Rome  Christian  doctrine  to  a  special  purpose.     It  is 


2  TIMOTHY  2,  9.  325 

no  doubt  far  more  flattering  to  the  pride  of  theorists 
and  system-mongers,  to  regard  what  they  have  bor- 
rowed or  stolen  from  the  Bible  as  a  common  stock 
from  which  both  parties  are  at  liberty  to  draw  ;  but 
they  have  no  right,  upon  this  ground,  to  deny  the 
notorious  fact  that  this  pretended  common  fund  was 
given  to  the  world  by  revelation  ages  before  their 
own  inventions  came  into  existence. 

It  would  be  easy  to  pursue  the  same  inquiry 
through  every  field  of  science  and  every  walk  of  art, 
and  to  show  that  even  there,  the  Word  of  God  has 
first  been  followed  as  a  guide,  and  then  expelled  as 
an  intruder  ;  that  its  light  has  first  been  used  to  kin- 
dle others,  and  then  vain  attemj)ts  made  to  extinguish 
it  forever ;  in  a  word,  that  its  enemies  have  first  re- 
sorted to  it  in  their  time  of  need,  and  then  ungrate- 
fully forgotten  or  unblushingly  denied  the  obligation. 
In  all  these  cases,  it  is  no  doubt  true  that  the  result 
of  the  mutilating  and  perverting  process  is  something 
unscriptural  and  antichristian.  It  is  not  pretended 
that  the  few  drops  of  pure  water  neutralize  the  poison, 
or  that  the  single  ray  of  light  dispels  the  darkness  into 
which,  as  if  by  accident,  it  finds  its  way.  The  gen- 
eral result  may  still  be  evil,  although  these  foreign 
elements  are  there ;  but  if  they  are  there,  who  will 
undertake  to  say  how  much  less  after  all  the  evil  is 
than  it  would  otherwise  have  been  ? 

Here  then  is  a  case  in  which  an  inappreciable 
cause  may  be  known  to  be  producing  great  effects. 
The  indirect  and  incidental  influence  of  Bible  truth 
upon  erroneous  systems  of  religion,  the  various  forms 
of  infidelity,  or  science,  art,  and  literature,  on  man- 


326  SERMONS. 

ners,  government,  and  social  morals,  cannot  be  meas- 
ured, but  it  cannot  be  denied.  It  maj  be  inscrutable, 
but  it  is  real,  and  we  must  not  leave  it  out  of  our  ac- 
count when  "vve  vrould  estimate  the  power  of  divine 
truth,  or  our  own  obligations  to  diffuse  it,  or  our 
causes  and  occasions  of  encouragement  to  persevere 
and  look  for  great  results  from  tlie  diffusion  of  that 
light  which,  though  it  sheds  its  full  effulgence  only 
on  a  few  most  highly  favoured  spots,  at  the  same 
time  sends  some  of  its  rays  into  the  dark  places  of  the 
earth  which  are  full  of  the  habitations  of  cruelty. 
Thanks  be  to  God,  that  the  beneficent  effects  of  his 
word  are  not  entirely  confined  to  those  who  willingly 
receive  it,  but  that  even  in  relation  to  the  church 
and  to  Christendom,  however  vast  their  advantages 
above  the  heathen,  "  the  word  of  God  is  not  bound." 
If  this  be  a  correct  view  of  the  influence  exerted 
even  indirectly  by  the  word  of  God  ;  if  over  and 
above  its  certain  and  complete  results,  it  shines 
through  the  interstices  of  unknown  caverns,  and  mit- 
igates the  darkness  of  unfathomed  depths ;  if  in  fer- 
tilizing one  spot,  it  sheds  even  a  few  scattered  but 
refreshing  drops  upon  a  multitude  of  others ;  if  in 
doing  all  for  some,  it  incidentally  does  some  for  all, 
let  me  ask,  in  conclusion,  what  should  be  the  practical 
effect  of  this  belief?  not  that  of  paralyzing  hope  or 
crippling  efibrt,  but  the  very  contrary.  It  should  for- 
bid despair ;  it  should  excite  to  new  exertion.  Its 
tendency  to  this  effect  may  be  exhibited  in  three  par- 
ticulars. And  first,  if  all  these  things  be  so,  we  need 
not  tremble  for  the  truth  itself.  Our  efforts  to  pre- 
serve it  and  improve  it  may  be  vain  ;  but  it  will  take 


2  TIMOTHY  2,  9.  327 

care  of  itself,  or  rather  God  will  take  care  of  it.  If 
his  word  were  something  that  existed  only  here  and 
there  like  precious  stones  and  metals,  we  might  fear 
that  it  would  be  drained  off  to  meet  some  urgent  de- 
mand elsewhere,  or  that  it  might  be  actually  lost  or 
destroyed.  But  who  can  fear  the  loss  of  that  which 
penetrates  all  substances,  and  reaches  even  the  remot- 
est regions  ?  Who  can  fear  the  loss  of  water,  air,  or 
fire?  To  individuals,  to  families,  to  entire  com- 
munities, the  truth  may  indeed  be  wholly  lost,  to 
their  eternal  undoing.  But  it  shall  not  be  banished 
from  the  world.  There  may  be  savages  to  whom  the 
use  of  fire  is  unknown.  There  are  deserts  which  are 
always  almost  wholly  void  of  moisture.  But  the 
flames  can  never  be  extinguished  on  these  millions  of 
hearths,  or  if  they  were,  they  would  be  soon  rekindled 
by  the  electric  clouds  of  heaven,  or  the  volcanic  cra- 
ters of  the  earth.  The  world  cannot  die  of  thirst  un- 
til the  windows  of  heaven  are  forever  stopped,  and 
the  fountains  of  the  deep  forever  emptied.  So  shall 
it  be  with  the  word  of  God ;  he  has  not  only  spread 
it  over  the  surface  of  society,  but  given  it  a  lodgment 
in  its  innermost  recesses.  Every  system,  every  in- 
stitution, every  community,  has  received  of  its  fuhiess, 
more  or  less.  Should  its  regular  depositories  be  de- 
stroyed, it  will  burst  forth  from  its  hiding-places 
where  it  lay  forgotten,  to  regenerate  the  world.  Its 
champions  may  be  overcome,  its  heralds  carried  cap- 
tive, "  but  the  word  of  God  is  not  bound." 

Another  aspect  of  the  same  thing  is,  that  if  such 
be  the  indirect,  as  well  as  the  direct  cfi'ects  of  truth, 
there  is  some  hope  for  the  world  itself,  and  even  f(>r 


328  SERMONS. 

those  parts  of  it,  and  tliose  tilings  in  ii,  which  other- 
wise might  seem  to  be  confined  to  hopeless,  irrecov- 
erable ruin.  Tlie  mass  may  in  itself  be  wholly  cor- 
ruj)t,  there  may  be  present  in  it  and  diffused  through 
out  it  a  potent  antiseptic  principle,  a  salt,  not  super- 
ficially applied,  but  absorbed  into  the  pores,  and 
lodged  in  the  vessels  of  the  body  politic,  not  so  as  en- 
tirely to  purge  out  its  impurities,  but  so  as  to  pre- 
serve it  from  immediate  dissolution.  AVhen  we  hear 
of  wars  and  revolutions,  when  we  see  the  weakness  of 
all  human  safeguards  proved  experimentally  by  one 
convulsion  following  another,  till  the  cause  of  human 
freedom  and  good  government  seems  desperate,  let 
us  remember  that  amidst  the  corruptions  and  infirm- 
ities of  even  the  best  human  institutions,  there  is 
still  a  power  working,  it  may  be  insensibly,  but  con- 
stantly and  not  without  effect,  to  procrastinate,  if  not 
to  prevent  forever  the  catastrophe  which  sometimes 
seems  so  inevitable.  The  statesman  and  the  dema- 
gogue are  far  from  dreaming  that  what  sometimes 
saves  them  from  the  ruin  which  they  had  long  ceased 
to  think  avoidable,  is  that  despised  religion  which 
they  have  in  vain  endeavoured  to  exclude  from  all 
participation  in  the  honours  of  their  boasted  system, 
but  which,  in  spite  of  them,  has  so  far  leavened  it, 
that  even  their  own  suicidal  violence  fails  of  its  effect. 
The  hand  of  power  may  be  palsied,  or  the  wild  force 
of  the  multitude  coerced  by  various  accidental  causes, 
but  this  mysterious  principle  still  lives,  and  moveSj 
and  acts  upon  society,  if  not  enough  to  give  it  health, 
enough  to  save  its  life.  The  ruler  and  the  ruled  may 
be  alike  in  bondage ;  "  biit  the  word  of  God  is  not 
bf)und." 


2  TIMOTHY  2,  9.  329 

Lastly,  if  this  be  a  con-ect  view  of  the  powerful 
and  multiform  energies  of  truth  ;  of  its  oblique  as  well 
as  its  direct  eflects  upon  the  world,  it  may  teach  us  a 
valuable  lesson  as  to  the  true  spirit  of  philanthropy, 
as  being  not  a  formal,  rigid,  mathematical  attempt 
to  save  men's  souls  by  certain  rules,  and  in  the  use  of 
certain  ceremonial  forms,  but  a  generous,  impulsive, 
and  expansive  zeal  for  the  glory  of  God  in  the  salva- 
tion of  the  lost.  If  such  be  even  the  remote  and  sec- 
ondary influence  of  truth  upon  men's  social,  intellect- 
ual, and  moral  state,  their  science,  literature,  arts, 
and  government,  let  us  give  them  excess  of  it,  whether 
they  will  hear  or  whether  they  will  forbear.  And  as 
the  surest  way  of  gaining  this  end,  let  us  flood  the 
world  with  the  pure  and  unadulterated  word  of  God. 

To  our  several  and  our  separate  systems  of  belief, 
we  owe  a  diligent  use  of  the  necessary  means  for 
their  establishment  and  propagation.  But  to  God, 
to  Christ,  and  to  the  souls  of  men,  we  owe  an  ener- 
getic and  unceasing  eff'ort  to  saturate  the  whole  earth 
with  that  word  in  which  we  all  agree.  Even  when 
we  have  done  all  that  seems  incumbent  on  us  throuo-h 
the  channels  of  our  own  ecclesiastical  relations,  we 
may  still  do  more  through  the  deep  and  broad  chan- 
nel of  our  common  Christianity.  The  word  of  God 
has  already  been  repeatedly  compared  to  water,  the 
natural  emblem  of  purification  and  refreshment.  Its 
diffusion  may  be  likened  to  the  measures  for  supply- 
ing a  whole  population,  such  as  that  of  a  great  city, 
with  this  precious  element  of  cleanliness,  comfort, 
health,  and  safety,  great  municipal  measures  now 
Other  supplies  may  be  acceptable  or  even  indispen- 


330 


SERMONS. 


sable  to  certain  classes  or  to  certain  spots,  but  this  is 
requisite  alike  to  all.  To  provide  it  may  cost  labour, 
time,  skill,  and  vast  expense  ;  but  it  is  worth  the  price. 
By  some  it  may  be  wasted  ;  some  may  mix  it  with 
intoxicating  drinks,  or  use  it  in  other  noxious  prepa- 
rations, or  directly  apply  to  the  injury  of  others  ;  but 
in  spite  of  all  these  possibilities  of  evil,  and  a  thou- 
sand more  as  easily  imagined,  it  is  still  a  blessing,  and 
may  safely  be  afforded  in  unlimited  abundance.  So 
is  it,  and  so  be  it,  with  the  word  of  God.  Whatever 
some  may  choose  to  do  with  it  or  mix  with  it,  how- 
ever some  may  lavish  or  neglect  it  or  pervert  it,  it  is 
still  the  word  of  God,  and  in  its  unadulterated  form 
may  be  poured  upon  the  nations  as  a  flood,  without  a 
fear  of  either  poisoning  or  drowning  them.  Then  let 
it  gush,  and  let  the  world  bear  witness  that  though 
every  other  channel  be  obstructed,  and  every  other 
source  of  influence  exhausted, — though  philosophy 
and  fancy  be  found  unavailing, — though  prophecies 
fail,  and  tongues  cease,  and  all  other  knowledge  vanish 
awa}' — though  the  very  ministers  of  truth  be  fettered 
in  civil  or  religious  bondage,  the  word  of  God  is  not 
bound — it  is  not  bound  ;  it  is  free  ;  it  is  alive ;  it  is 
in  motion  ;  it  shall  win  ;  it  shall  have  free  course  and 
be  clorified  till  "  the  earth  shall  be  full  of  the  kuowI« 
edge  of  God,  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea." 


XVIII. 

PsAi.M  8,  1.  9. — 0  Lord,  our  Lord,  how  excellent  is  thy  name  in 
all  the  earth ! 

There  is  no  traditional  and  nncommanded  nsa^e 
of  the  Jews,  among  the  many  with  which  they  have 
overlaid  and  darkened  their  own  scriptures,  half  so 
affecting  to  the  imagination  and  religious  sensil)ilities 
as  that  immemorial  suppression  of  the  name  Jehovah, 
which  lias  for  ages  been  a  kind  of  negative  or  tacit 
shibboleth,  to  mark  and  to  ]^erpetuate  the  difference 
between  Jew  and  Gentile.  However  false  in  i)rinci- 
ple,  however  destitute  of  scriptural  foundation  and 
divine  authority,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is 
something  in  this  national  and  everlasting  reticcncy 
as  to  the  most  solemn  and  significant  of  all  the  divine 
names,  not  far  removed  from  the  sublime,  and  that 
even  their  extreme  of  superstitious  silence,  when  at 
all  combined  with  feelings  of  elevation,  is  fiir  better 
than  the  frivolous  levity  with  whicn  that  venerable 
name  is  tossed  from  mouth  to  month,  not  only  in  pro- 
fane discourse,  but  even  in  jjublic  offices  and  courts 
of  justice,  not  to  say  in  the  pulpit  and  the  private 
circles  of  Christian  and  religious  intercourse. 

The  want  of  agreement  and  congruity  between 


332  SERMONS. 

this  singular  usage  and  tlie  cLaracteristic  absence  of 
all  mysteries  and  esoteric  doctrines  in  tlie  cliurch  of 
the  Old  Testament,  while  it  affords  a  strong  presump- 
tive proof  that  the  usage  is  one  foreign  from  the  prin- 
ciples and  spirit  of  the  Jews'  religion  in  its  purest 
days,  only  adds  to  its  imaginative  grandeur  and  effect, 
by  bringing  it  out  in  bold  relief,  like  a  dark  spot  on  a 
luminous  or  shining  surface.  The  religious  awe  which 
the  suppression  was  originally  meant  to  indicate,  and 
which  has  no  doubt  often  since  attended  it,  if  right  at 
all,  coula  not  have  been  associated  with  a  more  legit- 
imate or  worthy  object,  than  that  pregnant  tetra- 
grammaton,  in  the  four  characters  of  which,  as  in  a 
sacramental  symbol,  is  wrapped  up  the  germ,  or 
rather  the  quintessence,  of  that  wonderful  preparatory 
system  which  excited  and  sustained  the  expectation 
of  a  Saviour  till  the  time  of  his  epiphany  was  fully 
come.  However  difficult  it  may  be  to  determine  in 
detail  the  reason  for  the  use  of  the  two  principal 
divine  names  by  the  sacred  writers  in  specific  cases, 
there  is  no  ground  for  doubt,  or  for  diversity  of  judg- 
ment, as  to  the  main  fact,  that  Jehovah  is  distin- 
guished, in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  from  all  other 
designations  of  the  Godhead,  as  the  name  which 
attested  his  peculiar  relation  to  his  Church  or  chosen 
people,  and  the  clear  revelation  of  himself  and  of  his 
purposes,  vouchsafed  exclusively  to  them  ;  so  that  the 
very  sound  of  this  word,  now  supposed  by  many  to 
be  lost  through  immemorial  disuse,  or  its  very  sight, 
when  that  disuse  had  grown  inveterate,  suggested  not 
the  vague  idea  of  divinity,  nor  even  that  of  a  personal 
God,  viewed  merely  in  himself  and  at  a  distance,  but 


PSALM  8,  1.  9.  333 

the  warmer  feeling  of  a  God  in  covenant  with  his 
people,  making  himself  known  to  them  as  he  did  not 
to  the  world  at  large  ;  nay  more,  literally  dwelling  in 
the  midst  of  them,  and  actually,  personally,  reigning 
over  them.  With  such  associations,  this  significant 
and  pregnant  name  must  soon  have  grown  as  different 
in  meaning  and  effect,  from  the  generic  name  Elohim, 
which  was  common  to  the  true  God  with  all  others, 
as  the  corrasponding  terms  in  modern  parlance  are 
from  one  another  ;  and  as  all  men  among  us  are  free 
to  use  the  name  of  God,  in  season  or  out  of  season, 
blasphemously  or  devoutly,  while  the  name  of  Lord 
is  for  the  most  part  shunned  by  irreligious  lips,  as 
properly  belonging  to  the  dialect  of  personal  religion ; 
so  the  ancient  Jews,  although  they  still  continued  to 
adore  God  as  the  God  of  all  men,  under  the  name 
Elohim,  with  more  or  less  of  that  religious  reverence 
which  the  name  implies,  praised  him  and  served  him 
as  their  own,  peculiarly  revealed  and  covenanted  God, 
by  the  distinctive  name  Jehovah. 

This  being  the  case,  it  might  have  been  supposed 
that  the  distinctive  name,  thus  used  to  designate  the 
God  of  revelation  and  the  God  of  Israel,  if  significant 
at  all,  would  have  been  significant  of  something  closely 
connected  with  this  singular  relation  between  God  and 
his  peculiar  people,  so  that  when  the  name  was  heard 
or  seen  by  others  or  themselves,  its  very  etymology 
and  meaning  might  suggest  ideas  of  a  national  or 
local  kind,  and  irresistibly  convey  to  all  minds  the 
conception  of  a  special  propriety  in  Israel  on  God's 
part,  and  in  God  on  theirs.  But  so  far  is  this  from 
being  true,  that  there  is  none  of  the  divine  names  so 


334  SERMONS. 

remote  from  sncli  associations,  or  so  little  suited  in 
itself  to  rouse  them  ;  none  so  lofty,  or  profound,  or 
comprehensive,  as  an  expression  of  what  God  is  in 
himself,  without  regard  to  the  relations  wliicli  he  may 
sustain  to  all  or  any  of  his  creatures,  who  are  recog- 
nized in  their  description  only  as  unlike  Him,  or  con- 
trasted with  Ilim,  whom  it  represents  as  not  only  the 
Supreme,  but  in  a  certain  sense  the  only  Being,  of 
whom  alone  existence  can  in  the  highest  sense  be 
rightfully  affirmed ;  who  was  when  nothing  else  was ; 
who  is  what  nothing  else  is ;  without  whom  nothing 
else  was,  is,  or  can  be ;  the  source  of  being  in  all  others, 
the  self-existent,  independent,  and  eternal  essence, 
whose  most  perfect  designation  of  himself  was  given 
in  that  paradoxical  but  grand  enigma,  of  vrhicli  the 
name  Jehovah  is  but  an  abbreviated  symbol — I  shall 
be  what  I  shall  be,  or  I  am  what  I  am. 

That  a  name  suggestive  of  all  this  should  be  ap- 
plied to  the  peculiar  relation  between  God  and  his 
people,  seems  entirely  unaccountable,  except  upon 
the  supposition  that  it  was  intended  to  remind  them, 
by  the  very  name  employed  to  designate  their  na- 
tional and  covenanted  God,  that  he  was  not  a  God 
distinct  from  the  Creator  of  the  universe,  not  an  infe- 
rior and  derivative  divinity,  not  even  a  co-ordinate, 
co-equal,  co-eternal  being,  but  the  one,  sole,  self- 
existent,  independent,  and  eternal  essence,  '''the 
blessed  and  only  potentate,  the  King  of  kings  and 
Lord  of  lords,  loJio  only  hath  immortality^  dwelling 
in  the  light  which  no  man  can  approach  unto  ;  whom 
no  man  hath  seen  or  can  see  ;  to  whom  be  honour 
and  power  everlasting.  Amen."     (1  Tim.  G,  15.  IG.) 


PSALM  8,  1.  9  335 

TIlis  precantion  against  such  an  error  may  at  first 
siglit  seem  gratuitous  ar.d  inconsistent  with  tlie  very 
idea  of  a  chosen  people  ;  but  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
history  of  Israel  shows  that  such  a  notion  would  be 
perfectl}'  erroneous,  and  that  the  native  tendency  of 
fallen  num  to  transmute  truth  into  falsehood  and  per- 
vert the  richest  blessings  into  curses,  was  never  more 
remarkably  exemplified  than  in  the  national  expe- 
rience of  that  extraordinary  race,  who,  when  they 
had  been  severed  from  the  lest  of  men  by  a  divine 
clioice,  for  a  temporary  purpose,  and  fn-  the  ultimate 
advantage  of  the  wliole,  strangely  imagined  that  their 
segregation  was  designed  to  be  perpetual,  and  sprang 
from  some  intrinsic  or  innate  superiority,  or  at  least 
had  reference  to  tlieir  own  exclusive  aggrandizement 
as  its  final  cause  and  providential  purpose.  Had  this 
error  terminated  on  themselves,  and  merely  served 
to  aggravate  their  overweening  self-esteem,  it  would 
have  been  com2)aratively  harmless ;  but  alas !  the 
transition  was  an  easy  one  from  false  views  of  them- 
selves to  false  views  of  the  God  whose  favour  they 
affected  to  monopolize  as  not  the  God  of  the  Gentiles 
also  ;  and  from  this  the  fatal  step  was  almost  unavoid- 
able to  the  conclusion,  that  their  God  was  not  the  God 
of  nature  or  the  universe,  but  either  the  antagonistic 
princijjle  in  some  monstrous  scheme  of  dualism,  or  an 
inferior  deity  restricted  to  the  Holy  Land.  When 
such  views  became  possible,  even  to  the  least  en- 
lightened Jews,  no  wonder  that  the  Greek  and  Ivonuiu 
learned  to  sneer  at  the  ]u-ovincial  God  of  Palestine  ; 
no  wonder  that  the  modern  skeptic  still  delights  to 
represent  llim  as  a  local  deity  ;  no  wonder  that  the 


336  SERMONS, 

great  apostle  had  occasion  to  demand  in  his  day  :  "  Is 
he  the  God  of  the  Jews  only  ?  is  he  not  also  of  the 
Gentiles  ?  "     (Rom.  3,  29.) 

How  far  this  process  of  deterioration  went,  even 
among  the  most  corrupted  of  the  people,  cannot  now 
be  ascertained  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  these  false  vie^vs 
are  never  prescribed  among  the  enlightened  and  be- 
lieving class,  and  that  they  are  M-ithout  tlie  slightest 
countenance  or  shadow  of  authority  from  the  expe- 
rience or  example  of  the  ancient  Church,  as  such,  or 
of  the  men  who  were  inspired  to  furnish  it  with  forms 
and  models  of  devotional  experience,  some  of  which 
are  still  on  record,  and  contain  the  clearest  exposition 
of  the  true  sense  of  the  name  Jehovah,  and  of  the 
divine  intention,  in  revealing  it,  to  hinder  the  indul- 
gence of  a  grovelling  nationality  and  sectarian  bigot- 
ry, even  under  institutions  in  themselves  so  capable 
of  breeding  it ;  or  if  it  could  not  be  prevented,  to 
condemn  it  and  expose  it  by  means  of  the  perpetual 
contradiction  between  such  a  spirit  and  the  very  name 
by  which  they  were  accustomed  to  invoke  God,  as 
the  God  of  their  fathers,  and  the  God  in  covenant 
with  themselves.  Throughout  the  Law,  the  Prophets, 
and  the  Psalms,  the  uniform  tendency  of  revelation, 
and  of  the  spirit  which  the  ancient  saints  imbibed 
from  it,  is  to  identify  the  God  of  the  Jews  with  the 
God  of  the  Gentiles,  the  God  of  revelation  with  the 
God  of  nature,  and  the  God  of  nature  with  the  God  cf 
grace  ;  to  say,  O  Lord,  our  Lord,  our  King,  our  na- 
tional, our  covenant  God  !  how  glorious  is  thy  name, 
the  revelation  of  thy  nature,  not  only  among  us,  but 
in  all  the  earth  ! 


PSALM  S,  1.  9.  337 

Nor  was  this  effect  suffered  to  depend  upon  the 
dictates  of  reason  or  of  conscience;  much  less  was  it 
left  to  the  discretion  or  caprice  of  the  collective  church 
or  ijidividual  believers.  It  was  forced,  as  it  were, 
upon  the  very  senses,  which  could  not  refuse  to  recog- 
nize the  name  of  God  inscribed  upon  the  frame  of 
nature,  as  the  human  architect  or  sculptor  leaves  his 
own  indelibly  impressed  upon  the  incorruptible  and 
almost  unchangeable  material  upon  which  his  skill 
and  genius  work  their  wonders.  It  is  the  doctrine, 
not  of  poetr}^  or  mere  esthetics,  but  of  Scripture,  that 
the  heavens  are  telling  the  glory  of  God,  that  the  per- 
petual interchange  of  light  and  darkness  furnishes  a 
long  unbroken  series  of  witnesses  for  Him — day  unto 
day  poureth  out  speech,  night  unto  night  imparteth 
knowledge  ;  that  the  absence  of  articulate  expression 
only  adds  to  the  sublime  strength  of  this  testimony — 
no  speech,  no  words,  not  at  all  is  their  voice  heard, 
and  yet  their  voice  is  gone  out  into  all  the  world,  and 
their  words  unto  the  end  of  it ;  that  the  whole  frame 
of  nature  is  instinct  and  vocal  with  the  praises  of  an- 
other tlian  itself;  tliat  throughout  the  majestic  temple 
Of  the  universe,  all  of  it  says  Glory — not  its  own,  but 
God's — whose  name,  Jehovah,  is  distinctly  legible  all 
over  the  stupendous  structure,  and  whose  glory  is 
placed  upon  and  above  the  very  heavens.  The  in- 
vJtinctive  adoration  of  that  glory  is  not  limited  to  men 
of  science  and  cultivation  ;  it  is  felt  by  the  most  ig- 
uorant  and  uninformed;  it  is  felt  by  the  savage  as 
he  eyes  the  heavens  from  his  forest  or  his  desert;  it  is 
felt  by  the  young  children  whose  ink'lligcnce  is  still 
but  partially  developed,  but  whose  wonderful  struc- 

VOL.   II. 15 


338  SERMONS. 

ture  and  mysterious  progress  do  not  mDYC  trniy  bear 
a  passive  testimony  to  the  glory  of  their  Maker,  than 
their  nnconscions  admirati(;n  actually  contributes  to 
the  same  end,  affording  a  strong  defence  against"  the 
unbeliever  who  would  question  God's  holiness  or  ob- 
scure his  glory ;  so  that  out  of  the  mouth  of  babes 
and  sucklings  he  has  ordained  strength  to  silence  even 
his  most  spiteful  enemies. 

To  all  this,  the  very  name  Jehovah  should  have 
led  the  least  enlightened  of  the  Jews,  as  it  did  to  all 
this  lead  the  most  enlightened,  who  were  wont  to  read 
that  sacred  name  not  only  in  the  volumes  of  their  law, 
and  on  the  higli  priest's  forehead,  but  on  every  thing; 
so  that,  to  their  believing  eyes,  the  vevy  bells  of  the 
horses  were,  as  if  in  anticipation  of  the  prophecy,  in- 
scribed already,  Holiness  to  Jehovah.  As  in  God's 
palace,  all  says  glory,  all  its  contents  and  inmates,  so 
did  they  among  the  rest.  Some  of  the  noblest  of  the 
Psalms  of  David,  those  in  which  even  an  irreligious 
taste  can  see  most  to  admire,  were  written  for  the 
very  purpose  of  identifying  the  Jehovah  of  the  Scrip- 
tures with  the  God  of  Nature.  Of  tliis,  the  nineteenth 
and  the  twenty -ninth,  besides  the  psalm  before  us, 
are  remarkable  examples.  The  sublime  description, 
which  has  been  alread}^  quoted,  of  the  heavens  as  wit- 
nesses for  God,  is  merely  introductory  to  a  description 
of  this  same  God  as  the  ai;tlior  of  a  still  more  glorious 
law;  and  in  the  other  case  referred  to,  the  God  whose 
might}'  and  majestic  voice  the  Psalmist  hears  upon 
the  waters,  and  sees  crushing  the  cedars  of  Lebanon, 
heaving  out  flames  of  fire,  shaking  the  wilderness,  and 
6trij3ping  forests — the  God  whom  he  sees  riding  od 


PSALM  8.  1.  9.  335 

the  flood  and  enthroned  as  king  forever,  is  not,  as  the 
infidel  pretends,  a  tiiint  copy  of  the  cloud-compelling 
Zeus  or  the  Thunder-god  of  Scandinavian  mythology, 
but  a  God  who  must  be  worshij)ped  in  the  beauty  of 
holiness — the  Lord  Jehovah,  who  gives  strength  unfco 
his  people,  who  blesses  his  people  with  peace. 

With  these  views  of  his  physical  supremacy,  as 
M'ell  as  of  his  moral  perfection,  the  inspired  poets  of 
the  old  economy,  and  those  for  whom  their  composi- 
tions furnished  vehicles  of  pious  sentiment,  were  not 
unwilling  to  look  nature  in  the  face,  or  afraid  to  look 
up  from  the  ground  on  which  they  trod,  at  the  mag- 
nificent creation  overhead  and  all  around,  as  if  it 
were  tlie  devil's  handy-work,  or  that  of  some  inferior 
god,  or  that  of  fallen  man,  and,  therefore,  necessarily 
contaminating  to  the  eyes  and  ears  of  saints ;  but  in 
that  very  character  of  saints  or  holy  ones,  and  in  the 
exercise  of  those  aff'ections  which  determined  them  to 
be  such,  they  looked  nature  in  the  face,  not  by  chance, 
but  of  set  purpose  ;  not  by  compulsion,  but  spontane- 
ously ;  not  rarely,  but  often  ;  not  as  an  occasional  in- 
dulgence, but  as  an  habitual  duty  ;  not  with  a  gaze  ot 
vacant  listlessness,  but  with  a  serious  contemplation, 
they  considered,  they  attentively  considered  the  heav- 
ens ;  yet  with  no  idolatrous  and  overweening  rever- 
ence, as  if  self  made  ;  with  no  atheistical  indifierence, 
as  if  not  made  at  all ;  but  with  a  genuine,  devout,  be- 
lieving interest,  as  knowing  them  to  be  the  handy- 
work  of  God — not  the  gross  product  of  a  blind  and 
brutal  power,  acting  irresistibly,  yet  wholly  without 
purpose,  but  the  perfect  and  symmetrical  result  of  a 
divine  intelligence,  as  really  designing  and  construct- 


340  ■     SERMONS. 

ing  what  it  brings  into  existence,  as  the  vnind  of  man 
directs  his  fingers  in  the  nicest  operations  of  mechani- 
cal contrivance  or  artistic  skill ;  so  tliat  the  j)salmist, 
by  a  bold  and  beautiful  assimilation  of  the  finite  to 
the  infinite,  describes  the  heavens  as  the  work  of 
God's  fingers — a  work  not  abandoned  to  its  own  con- 
trol, or  left  without  control,  when  once  created,  but 
ordained,  fixed,  settled,  by  the  same  creative  and  al- 
mighty power,  each  celestial  body  in  its  own  allotted 
sphere  or  orbit ;  so  that  when  he  considered  the  heav- 
ens the  work  of  God's  fingers,  the  moon  and  the  stars 
which  he  had  ordained — he  looked  through  the  con- 
trivance to  the  great  contriver — through  the  building, 
in  which  all  says  "  glory  "  !  to  the  builder,  by  whose 
skill  and  power,  and  for  whose  everlasting  praise  it  is 
and  was  created. 

Such  religious  views  of  the  material  universe  must, 
of  necessity,  react  on  the  spectator,  to  whom  the  works 
of  God  perform  the  office,  not  only  of  a  telescope,  but 
of  a  mirror,  through  which  he  sees  God,  in  Avhich  he 
sees  himself;  and,  as  some  celestial  phenomena  can 
only  be  observed  by  the  assistance  of  reflectors,  so  in 
morals,  man  can  only  see  himself  in  God,  and  never 
becomes  conscious  of  his  littleness  until  it  is  reflect- 
ed from  God's  greatness.  Hence  the  atheist  must 
be  proud,  because  his  standard  is  so  low,  because 
he  substitutes  for  God,  in  his  comparison  of  magni- 
tudes, not  only  man  but  self,  not  only  an  inferior  spe- 
cies, but  the  individual  example  of  that  species,  as  to 
which  he  knows,  or  ought  to  know,  most  evil,  while 
the  true  believer  in  a  God  employs  a  very  different 
measure,  and   sees  his  own  diminutive   proportions 


PSALM  8,  1.  9.  341 

constantly  reflected  from  the  glass  of  God's  majestic 
works  above  liim  and  aronnd  him,  he  can  say,  with 
David,  When  I  consider  tliy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy 
fingers,  the  moon  and  tlie  stars  which  thou  hast  or- 
dained, what  is  man  tliat  thou  shouldst  think  of  him, 
or  thinking  of  him,  shouldst  remember  him  or  bear 
in  mind  so  insignificant  an  object — not  as  implying 
any  serious  doubt  as  to  the  fact ;  for  if  there  is  a 
providence  at  all,  it  must  be  a  particular  one.  jSTor 
does  the  difticulty  of  the  subject  turn  upon  the  great- 
ness or  smallness  of  the  objects  comprehended  in  its 
scope,  but  on  its  being  exercised  at  all ;  and  if  it  is, 
as  we  are  well  assured,  and  if,  without  it,  not  a  hair 
falls  or  a  sparrow  dies,  how  much  more  may  man  ex- 
pect to  share  in  this  divine  protection,  the  reality  of 
which  is  not  denied  or  even  called  in  question  by  the 
Psalmist,  who  is  not  laying  down  a  proposition  or  es- 
tablishing a  doctrine,  but  expressing  a  strong  feeling, 
namely,  that  of  conscious  insignificance  before  God, 
under  the  sense  of  which  he  wonders,  not  whether 
God  thinks,  but  that  he  should  think  of  an  object  so 
diminutive  ;  or  having  once  thought,  should  remem- 
ber ;  or  remembering,  should  visit  man,  considered  as 
a  race,  or  any  son  of  man  in  particular.  Whether  the 
reference  be  to  figurative  visitations,  such  as  men  are 
hourly  receiving,  or  to  those  more  sensible  theopha- 
nies,  appearances  of  God  in  human  or  angelic  form, 
by  which  the  saints  of  the  Old  Testament  were  some- 
times honoured,  when  about  to  be  called  to  some  ex- 
traordinary duty,  or  distinguished  by  some  signal 
mercy.  What  is  man  that  God  should  thus  remem- 
ber him,  or  the  son  of  man  that  God,  in  cither  of  the 


342  SERMONS. 

senses  jnst  explained,  should  vi'sit  him  ?  This  feeling 
of  suj'prise,  though  always  reasonai  Je  and  hecomiiig, 
never  seems  so  natural  as  when  it  is  immediately  sug- 
gested by  the  sight  of  God's  stupendous  works,  espe- 
cially the  heavens,  whicli  are  the  work  of  his  lingers, 
the  moon  and  the  stars  which  he  has  ordained. 

It  is  not,  however,  before  these  material  works 
themselves  that  man  is  called  to  bow  with  such  a 
deep  conviction  of  his  own  inferiority.  Matter  is  no 
more  above  mind  upon  a  large  scale  than  a  small  one, 
in  an  earth  than  in  a  clod,  in  a  sea  than  in  a  drop,  in 
a  sun  than  in  a  spark,  in  a  world  than  in  an  atom. 
The  least  mind  is  superior,  in  itself  and  in  the  scale 
of  existence,  to  all  matter.  Man  is  not  bound  to  rc- 
coirnize  either  the  heavens  or  the  heavenlv  hosts  as 
his  superiois.  Ilis  homage  is  due,  not  to  them  but 
to  their  maker.  He  stands  in  speechless  admiration 
of  them,  oidy  as  stupendous  proofs  of  God's  existence 
and  perfections.  In  themselves  considered,  they  are 
man's  inferiors  ;  he  looks  down  upon  them,  nay,  he 
exercises  a  dominion  over  them,  and  that  not  by 
chance  or  usurpation,  but  express  divine  authority. 
For  strange  as  it  miffht  seem  that  he  who  made  and 
manages  those  shining  worlds,  in  all  their  complicat- 
ed sj'stems,  should  remember  man  and  visit  him  in 
favour,  it  is  true,  for  God  made  man  in  his  own  imago, 
and  invested  him  with  power  as  his  own  vicegerent, 
with  dominion  over  the  inferior  creation,  so  that  even 
Sim,  and  moon,  and  stars,  and  elements,  and  seasons, 
should  contribute  to  his  wealth  and  his  enjoyment, 
and  the  earth  from  which  he  was  oiiginally  taken  be 
compelled  to  yield  her  fruits  for  his  subsistence,  and 


PSALM  8,  1.  9.  343 

the  most  mysterious  powers  of  nature  made  to  minis- 
ter to  his  convenience ;  and  besides  this  stranj^e  sub- 
jection of  inanimate  creation  to  his  interest  and  liis 
will,  the  lower  animals  are  pressed  into  his  service, 
even  those  whose  strength  is  far  superior  to  his  own, 
and  who  might  well  seem  able  to  shake  off  his  yoke 
at  any  moment,  and  yet  bear  it  with  submission,  not 
as  a  necessary  consequence  of  reason  upon  his  part, 
— for  the  highest  animal  sagacity  brings  with  it  no  such 
relative  superiority  among  the  brutes  themselves — 
but  as  a  relic  and  a  proof  of  man's  original  formation 
in  God's  image  and  his  original  vestiture  with  dele- 
gated power  as  God's  vicegerent  over  the  material 
and  irrational  creation,  in  admiring  retrospect  of 
which  the  Psalmist  says  :  "Thou  madest  him  to  have 
dominion  over  the  works  of  thy  hands  ;  thou  didst  put 
all  things  under  his  feet,  all  sheep  and  oxen,  yea,  and 
the  beasts  of  the  field,  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  the  fish 
of  the  sea,  and  whatsoever  passeth  through  the  paths 
of  the  seas." 

Even  this  honour  put  on  man  as  an  intelligent  and 
spiritual  being,  partaking,  in  this  cardinal  respect,  of 
God's  own  nature,  although  infinitely  less,  might  seem 
sufficient  of  itself  to  justify  the  bold  assertion,  "  thou 
lias  made  him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels,"  or,  as 
the  words  literally  mean,  "hast  made  liim  to  lack 
little  of  divinity,"  so  riciily  hast  thou  crowned  his 
head  with  glory  and  honour.  But  the  full  justifica- 
tion of  this  bold  description  is  afforded  by  another 
fact,  as  to  the  most  essential  and  conspicuous  feature 
of  that  image  in  which  man  was  created — his  moral 
similarity  of  nature  and  uniformity  of  will  to  God— 


344  SERMONS. 

coincidence  of  judgment,  disposition,  and  affection; 
in  a  word,  true  holiness,  the  crowning  ex.ellence  of 
God  himself,  without  which  his  created  image  must 
have  been  a  sightless  mask,  a  lifeless  statue,  or  a 
living  but  soulless  form,  but  with  which  man  was 
really  invested,  and  possessing  which  he  may,  with- 
out irreverence  or  extravagance,  be  said  to  have  been 
"  made  a  little  lower,"  not  "  than  angels"  merely,  but 
than  God  himself,  from  whom  he  diflfered  only, 
although  infinitely,  in  degree. 

But  although  Adam  might  have  triumphed  in  this 
glorious  and  blessed  likeness,  how  can  we,  or  how 
could  even  he,  who  was  the  man  after  God's  own 
heart,  but  who  so  often  and  so  bitterly  bewails  his 
own  corruption,  as  one  conceived  in  sin  and  shapen 
in  iniquity,  whose  only  hope  was  in  the  i;iercy  of  the 
God  against  whom  he  had  sinned,  through  what  illu- 
sive medium  could  even  he  behold  himself  or  the  race 
of  which  he  was  a  member,  as  still  holding  this 
sublime  position,  as  little  lower  than  the  angels,  nay, 
as  lacking  little  of  divinity  ?  If  he,  if  men  in  general, 
had  lost  their  chief  resemblance  to  their  maker ;  if  the 
image  in  which  they  were  made  at  first  had  been  de- 
faced and  broken,  and  their  mutual  communion  turned 
into  estrangement,  and  the  prospect  of  perpetual 
favour  bantered  for  a  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment 
and  fiery  indignation,  how  could  David  wonder  at 
the  honour  and  glory  with  which  man  wa.s  crowned, 
instead  of  standing  horrorstruck  to  see  it  torn  from 
his  dishonoured  brow  ?  Was  it  because  he  did  not 
know  or  had  forgotten  this  great  fact  in  human  his- 
tory ?     Alas,  his  psalms  are  full  of  it.     Was  it  in 


FSALM  S,  1.  9.  345 

musing  recollection  of  a  state  of  things  now  past  and 
never  to  return  ?  But  sucli  a  glowing  exhibition  of  a 
happiness  and  greatness  irrevocably  lost,  would  be 
unnatural,  irrational,  and  as  such,  inconsistent  with 
his  character  whether  intellectual  or  moral. 

ISTor  are  these  unworthy  suppositions  needed  to 
explain  his  language,  which  receives  its  full  solution 
from  the  fact  that  he  contemplates  man,  both  in  the 
future  and  the  past,  as  fallen  and  raised  again,  as  cast 
off  and  restored,  as  lost  in  Adam  and  as  saved  in 
Christ,  not  only  reinstated,  but  exalted  higher ;  for  the 
first  Adam  was  indeed  a  living  soul,  but  the  last 
Adam  is  a  quickening  spirit ;  the  first  man  is  of  the 
earth  earthy,  the  second  man  is  the  Lord  from 
heaven.  Yet  as  the  offence,  so  also  is  the  free  gift, 
for  if  by  one  man's  ofience  death  reigned  by  one, 
much  more  they  which  receive  abundance  of  grace 
and  of  the  gift  of  righteousness,  shall  reign  in  life  by 
one,  Jesus  Christ.  AVithout  this  link  the  chain  is 
broken  ;  without  this  simultaneous  view  of  man  as  he 
was  and  is  to  be,  of  the  first  and  second  Adam,  there 
is  something  wanting  in  the  Psalm  itself,  a  flaw,  an 
incongruity,  a  contradiction  between  revelation  and 
experience,  which  can  only  be  removed  by  looking 
down  as  well  as  up  the  stream  of  time,  forward  to 
Christ  as  well  as  backwards  to  Adam.  It  is  therefore 
no  fanciful  accommodation,  but  a  true  and  necessary 
exposition  of  the  Psalmist's  meaning,  when  the  apostle, 
after  quoting  these  words,  speaks  of  Jesus  as  made  a 
little  lower  than  the  angels  for  the  suffering  of  death 
that  he  by  the  grace  of  God  might  taste  death  for 
every  man,  and  thereby  reinstate  us  in  our  pristine 
VOL.  n. — 15* 


34:6  SERMONS. 

exaltation,  renewed  in  the  spirit  of  our  mnds  and 
clothed  upon  with  that  new  man,  which  is  created 
after  the  likeness  of  God,  in  knowledge,  and  right- 
eousness, and  true  holiness.  (Ephesians  4,  24  ;  Colos- 
sians  3,  10.) 

Not  only  as  a  model  or  example  does  the  second 
Adam  thus  restore  the  race  of  which  he  has  become 
the  head  by  his  assumption  of  its  nature,  so  that  in 
him  as  tlieir  representative  they  see  themselves  again 
exalted,  but  by  actual  union  with  him,  they  expe- 
rience a  real  and  substantial  exaltation  from  the 
dej^ths  of  sin  and  misery  to  a  state  of  justification 
through  his  righteousness  and  sanctification  by  the 
power  of  his  Spirit,  and  a  consequent  participation  in 
the  elevating  and  ennobling  process  by  which  he  has 
raised  humanity  from  being  almost  lower  than  the 
brutes,  to  be  again  a  little  lower  than  the  angels,  than 
divinity,  than  God  himself.  How  much  of  all  this 
David  clearly  saw,  we  can  no  more  determine  than 
we  can  look  back  at  noon  and  tell  how  much  of  what 
we  then  see  bathed  in  light  was  visible  at  sunrise  or 
at  daybreak  ;  but  we  do  know  that  the  Saviour  whom 
he  saw  and  whom  we  see,  however  great  the  dif- 
ference of  clearness,  is  the  same,  just  as  we  know  that 
the  skies  which  are  now  telling  the  glory  of  God,  and 
the  starry  firmament  which  now  shows  forth  his 
handy-work,  are  literally  and  trul}-  the  same  objects 
of  whicli  David  said,  "  "When  I  consider  the  heavens, 
the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the  moon  and  the  stars,  which 
thou  hast  ordained,  what  is  man  tliat  thou  shouldst 
remember  him,  or  the  son  of  man  that  thou  shouldst 
visit  him  and  make  him  lack  but  little  of  divinity, 


PSALM  8,  ;.  9.  3-I.7 

and  crown  him  with  glory  and  honour,  and  make  him 
have  dominion  over  the  works  of  thy  hands,  and  put 
all  tilings  under  his  feet."  In  Christ  as  the  Head, 
and  in  his  people  as  the  Body,  this  is  gloriously  ful- 
filled, "  for  he  hath  put  all  things  under  liis  feet," 
(1  Cor.  15,  27,)  and  given  him  to  be  head  over  all 
things  to  the  church,  which  is  his  body,  the  fulness 
of  him  that  filleth  all  in  all."  (Ephesians  1,  22.  23.) 
In  prophetic  foresight  of  the  Saviour  the  inspired 
king  could  say,  and  in  believing  recollection  of  him 
we  can  say,  of  man  not  only  as  he  was  before  the  fall, 
but  as  he  is,  already  fallen,  yet  susceptible  of  restora- 
tion to  God's  image  and  to  the  dignity  inseparable 
from  it,  thou  hast  made  hi  in  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels  and  hast  crowned  him  with  glory  and  honour. 
The  train  of  thought  which  we  have  been  pursu- 
ing, is  not  only  in  accordance  with  the  general  tenor 
of  the  word  of  God,  but  identical  with  that  which  runs 
through  the  psalm  before  us,  as  expounded  and  ap- 
plied in  the  New  Testament,  and  nuiy  be  profitably 
used  by  us  for  the  correction  of  some  common  and 
pernicious  errors.  It  may  serve,  for  example,  as  a 
corrective  of  that  spurious  and  vitiated  taste  which 
many  cherish  for  the  beauties  of  nature,  and  which 
sometimes  verges  towards  the  worst  form  of  idolatr3\ 
It  is  true,  the  views  which  we  have  taken  are  equally 
adverse  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  sanctimonious  in- 
difference or  fanatical  contempt  for  the  material 
works  of  God  ;  to  both  these  forms  of  error  they  afford 
the  only  safe  and  eflicacions  antidote,  by  teaching  us 
to  "  consider  the  heavens"  as  "  the  work  of  God's 
fingers,"  "  the  moon  and  the  stars"  as  things  which 


348  SERMONS. 

he  has  "  ordained,"  and  to  deri\e  from  the  view  of 
his  perfections  thus  suggested,  new  impressions  of 
our  own  insignificance  and  his  benignant  condescension 
in  originally  placing  man  above  this  glorious  creation 
and  again  restoring  him  when  he  had  fallen.  A 
habitual  contemplation  of  this  aspect  of  God's  works 
would  be  tlie  best  corrective,  both  of  the  spurious 
religion  which  ignores  them,  and  of  the  atheism  which 
beautifies  or  the  pantheism  which  deifies  external 
nature. 

Nor  would  this  corrective  influence  be  limited  to 
the  domain  of  sentiment  or  taste  ;  it  might  extend  to 
science,  and.  restore  a  healthful  circulation  in  the 
otherwise  inanimate  and  soulless  frame  of  mere  ma- 
terial wisdom,  from  astronomy,  whose  chosen  work  it  is 
to  "  consider  the  heavens  the  work  of  God's  fingers,  the 
moon  and  the  stars  which  he  has  ordained ; "  to  zool- 
ogy, which  pries  into  the  habits  and  the  constitution 
of  the  animal  creation ;  "  all  sheep  and  oxen,  yea,  and. 
beasts  of  the  field  ;  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  the  fish  of 
the  sea,  and  whatsoever  passeth  through  the  paths  of 
the  sea." 

But  why  should  I  speak  of  this  amelioratiHg  pro- 
cess as  one  merely  possible,  when  it  is  really  a  matter 
of  experience ;  when  the  cases  of  eminent  investigators 
and  discoverers  who  believe  in  God  and  Christ,  and  who 
apply  to  the  connection  between  physical  and  moral 
truth  the  maxim,  what  God  hath  joined  together  let 
not  man  put  asunder,  are  no  longer  rare  exceptions 
to  the  general  rule  of  sneering  skepticism  or  dogma- 
tizing imbelief,  but  bid  fair,  in  our  own  day  and 
country,  to  reverse  the  old  relation  between  faith  and 


PSALM  8,  1.  9.  349 

infidelity  in  scientific  studies,  by  afibrding  in  their 
own  example  the  most  striking  and  conclusive  proof 
that  ignorance  of  God  or  hatred  to  liim  is  by  no 
means  a  prerequisite  to  thorough  knowledge,  and  cor- 
rect appreciation  of  his  works.  When  the  cliange, 
thus  ausjjiciously  begun,  shall  be  completed,  we  may 
hope  to  see  it  followed  by  another  in  the  feelings  and 
the  dialect  of  common  life,  as  to  the  dignity  of  human 
nature,  a  cessation  of  that  strong  delusion  which  leads 
men  to  shut  their  eyes  upon  the  most  notoriuus  fact 
in  human  history,  the  fact  of  man's  apostasy  from 
God,  and  with  impotent  energy  try  to  struggle  back 
to  their  original  position  by  their  own  unaided 
strength,  speaking  and  acting  just  as  if  the  fall  and 
its  effects  were  a  mere  phantasma  and  a  hideous 
dream,  from  which  the  world  was  now  awaking, 
when  in  fact  the  dream  and  the  illusion  are  all  the 
other  way,  and  whoever  is  awakened  from  them, 
must  awake  to  the  discovery,  however  humbling  and 
unwelcome,  that  man,  though  once  exalted,  is  now 
fallen,  and  can  only  be  restored  by  sovereign  mercy, 
as  offered  and  exercised  through  Jesus  Christ.  The 
soul,  once  roused  from  its  protracted  stupor,  may  dis- 
tinctly read  this  truth  by  looking  inwards  at  the  ruins 
and  remains  of  man's  original  condition,  at  his  present 
degradation  and  pollution,  and  at  the  aspirations  after 
something  better  which  disturb  him  even  in  his  deep- 
est slumbers  and  his  worst  excesses. 

The  same  thing,  if  he  looks  out  of  himself,  is  legi- 
ble not  only  in  the  word,  but  in  the  works  of  God,  or 
lather  in  the  word  and  works  of  God  together,  in  his 
works  as  expounded  by  his  word  and  Spirit.     How- 


350  SERMONS. 

ever  blank  or  dark  tlie  universe  mt.y  seem  till  thus 
Illuminated,  when  the  light  does  shine  upon  it,  the 
reawakened  soul  can  no  longer  "  consider  the  heavens 
the  work  of  God's  fingers,  the  moon  and  the  stars 
which  he  has  ordained,"  without  inquiring,  '.'what  is 
man  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him,  and  the  son  of  man 
that  thou  shouldst  visit  him,  and  make  him  want  but 
little  of  angelic,  naj,  of  godlike  exaltation,  crowned 
with  glory  and  honour,  and  invested  with  dominion 
over  the  irrational  creation  !  " 

This  conception  of  man's  pristine  elevation  some- 
times rises  before  the  mind's  eye,  as  a  beautiful  and 
splendid  image  of  unfallen  humanity,  standing  like  a 
statue  upon  some  triumphal  arch  or  commemorative 
column,  or  suspended  in  mid-air  like  some  celestial 
visitant  surveying  with  compassion  this  inferior 
world.  But  as  we  gaze  upon  it,  and  indulge  the 
fond  imagination  that  the  relative  position  of  tlie 
race  and  of  the  individual  man  is  still  unchanged,  the 
liglit  of  revelation  and  experience  grows  brighter,  and 
as  it  reaches  its  extreme  degree,  the  image  vanishes 
away,  as  if  absorbed  in  the  intense  light,  and  the  lofty 
place  so  proudly  occupied  by  man,  is  seen  to  be  a 
blank,  a  vacuum,  an  empty  space,  through  and  be- 
yond which  may  be  seen  the  pure  effulgence  of  the 
divine  perfections,  "  unobscured,  unsullied  by  a  cloud 
or  spot,  though  man  is  fallen,  fallen  from  his  high 
estate."  And  as  the  eye  of  the  spectator  shrinks 
from  this  mi  veiled,  dazzling  brightness,  it  is  suddenly 
relieved  by  an  intervening  object,  at  first  undefined 
and  dubious,  like  a  radiant  cloud  or  mist,  which  by 
degrees  assumes  a  shape  and  a  distinguishable  outline, 


1 


PSALM  8,  1.  9.  351 

till  at  length  it  can  no  longer  be  mistaken,  as  a  human 
form,  a  man,  the  Son  of  man,  but,  oh,  how  changed, 
how  transfigured  before  us !  his  face  shines  as  the 
sun  !  his  raiment  is  white  as  the  light !  and  from  the 
bright  cloud  overshadowing  him,  a  voice  comes  forth 
out  of  the  excellent  glory,  saying,  "  This  is  my  be- 
loved Son  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased ;  hear  ye  him." 
It  is  indeed  the  Son  of  God,  it  is  indeed  the  Son  of 
man,  the  type  of  our  humanity  restored  and  glorified. 
Oh  if  this  blessed  sight  could  be  associated,  even  in 
imagination,  with  our  daily  contemplations  of  the 
face  of  nature  ;  if  we  could  not  look  upon  the  heavens 
the  work  of  God's  fingers,  the  moon  and  the  stars 
which  he  has  ordained,  without  remembering  what 
man  once  was,  what  he  now  is,  and  above  all  what 
he  yet  may  be  ;  we  might  find  not  only  pleasure  in 
prosj)erity,  but  solace  under  sorrow,  in  contemplating 
the  works  of  God,  not  as  poets,  or  artists,  or  philoso- 
phers, or  atheists,  but  as  Christians,  whose  perspica- 
cious faith  cannot  rest  in  what  is  visible,  but  pierces 
through  tlie  thin  material  veil  in  search  of  hope  and 
consolation,  just  as  Stephen,  on  the  very  verge  of 
martyrdom,  and  from  the  very  midst  of  his  judicial 
murderers,  "looked  up  steadfastly  into  heaven,  and 
saw  the  glory  of  God,  and  Jesus  standing  on  tlie  riglit 
hand  of  the  Father."  Yes,  there  is  a  sense  in  which 
even  we  might  have  a  right  to  say  as  he  did,  "  Be- 
hold, I  see  the  heavens  opened,  and  the  Son  of  man 
standing  on  the  right  hand  of  God."  And  tliough 
the  blinded  world  around  us  might  cry  out  with  a 
loud  voice,  and  stop  their  ears,  and  run  upon  us  with 
one  accord,-  even  they  might   be  compelled  to  tako 


352  SERMONS. 

knowledge  of  us  as  having  been  with  Jesus,  even  they, 
if  they  looked  steadfastly  upon  us,  might  see  the  face 
of  every  one  among  ns  beaming  with  unearthly  ra- 
diance, as  if  it  were  the  face  of  an  angel. 

Having  reached  this  point  in  our  experience,  hav- 
ing thus  learned  to  associate  the  material  works  of 
God  with  the  profoundest  views  of  spiritual  truth,  we 
should  need  no  further  remedy  for  that  grovelling 
nationality  or  party  spirit,  which  is  apt  to  spring  up 
even  in  renewed  hearts  and  enlightened  minds,  not 
only  in  spite,  but  in  consequence  of  those  very  privi- 
leges which  ought  to  have  forbidden  its  existence,  just 
as  the  Jews  learned  to  associate  their  most  narrow  and 
uncharitable  prejudices  with  that  very  name  of  God — 
which  ought  to  have  reminded  them,  at  every  mo- 
ment, that  Jehovah,  though  in  covenant  with  them, 
was  not  the  God  of  the  Jews  only,  but  of  the  Gentiles 
also.  If  we  would  shun  the  kindred,  but  more  odious 
error  of  degrading  the  God  whom  we  worship,  and 
the  Christ  in  whom  we  trast,  to  the  level  of  a  local 
chief  or  party  leader,  let  us  here  learn  to  identify 
the  object  of  our  faith  and  adoration  with  the  God 
of  creation  and  of  providence ;  let  us  not  only  read 
the  name  of  God  our  king,  and  God  our  Saviour, 
traced  in  characters  of  light  upon  the  whole  ma- 
terial universe,  but  strive  to  make  it  legible  to 
others  also,  till  the  book  of  nature  and  the  book  of 
revelation  are  enveloped  in  one  vast  illumination,  in 
the  blaze  of  which  all  lesser  lights  are  lost,  and  in  the 
midst  of  which  all  human  tongues  of  man  shall  be 
heard  in  harmony  or  unison,  resjDonding  to  the  loud 
but  speechless  testimony  of  the  heavens  ,  "  Oh  Lord, 
our  Lord,  how  crlorious  is  tliv  name  in  all  the  earth  !  " 


XIX. 

John  17,  3. — This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  might  know  thee,  tne 
only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom  thou  hast  sent. 

It  is  a  glorious  doctrine  that  there  is  a  God.  We 
are  forced  to  assume  it,  as  a  first  principle  of  our  re- 
ligious knowledge,  and  perliaps  for  that  very  reason, 
are  prone  to  underrate  or  to  forget  its  value.  To  cor- 
rect this  practical  en-or,  we  need  only  ask  ourselves, 
what  should  we  he  without  a  knowledge  of  this  great 
truth  ?  Men  may  dispute  as  to  the  mode  in  which 
our  first  conceptions  of  a  God  have  been  obtained. 
Some  may  derive  it  from  an  observation  of  his  works, 
and  subsequent  reflection  on  tlicm.  Some  may  re- 
gard it  as  innate ;  a  kind  of  invisil)le  writing  on  the 
soul,  to  be  educed  and  rendered  legible  by  intellectual 
and  moral  culture.  But  this  much  appears  certain  : 
we  can  form  a  conception  of  a  rational  soul  without 
any  definite  notions  of  God,  even  of  a  God,  of  any 
God. 

We  can  conceive  of  such  a  soid  with  its  ideas  re- 
stricted to  itself,  or  to  beings  like  itself,  with  no  liigher 
standard  or  more  perfect  model  than  that  aftbrded  by 
its  own  experience,  or  its  observation  of  its  fellows. 


354  SERMONS. 

Or  if  we  suppose  it  to  rise  higlier,  as  imagiuing  one 
like  itself,  but  differing  in  degree  ;  conceiving  only  of 
itself  exalted  to  a  higher  rank,  but  with  no  conception 
of  a  lawgiver,  a  sovereign,  an  almighty  deliverer. 
Such  a  mind  would  be  truly  dark,  compared  with  the 
light  which  blazes  around  us. 

But  suppose  a  portion  of  that  light  to  be  let  in 
upon  it  by  degrees,  and  with  it  a  conception  of  some 
thing  intrinsically  higher,  better,  nobler  than  the  man 
himself,  distinguished  from  him  not  merely  by  an 
individual  or  even  a  specific,  but  by  a  generic  differ- 
ence, possessing  all  that  appears  good  in  us,  but 
without  the  limitations  and  defects  which  mar  it; 
possessing  more  of  knowledge,  power,  and  goodness, 
much  more,  vastly  more,  infinitely  moi-e.  This  is  a 
great  advance  upon  his  previous  conceptions,  this  is 
the  idea  of  a  God,  however  vague  and  immature  ;  it 
is  a  new  and  grand  idea,  it  presents  a  new  aim  and  a 
higher  standard,  something  to  which  the  awakened 
soul  can  now  look  up,  and  towards  which  it  can 
stretch  in  emulous  desire  to  rise  above  itself.  Even 
by  removing  all  limitation,  and  by  raising  every  ex- 
cellence to  the  highest  pitch  conceivable,  we  come  to 
the  idea  of  perfection,  at  least  negatively ;  and  this, 
if  not  all  that  is  attainable,  is  certainly  a  great  ad- 
vance from  nothing  or  from  self  to  God,  to  the  notion 
of  a  perfect  object  for  our  contemplation,  our  desire, 
our  love. 

But  this  idea  of  perfection  may  itself  be  imperfect. 
Tlie  mind  may  leave  out  of  view  some  essential  attri- 
butes, or  view  them  in  a  false  light  and  in  dispropor- 
tion.    It  may  even  view  them  as   abstractions  not 


JOHN  17,  3.  355 

inlierent  in  a  personal  subject,  inherent  only  in  the 
universe,  or  in  its  parts,  or  in  the  powers  of  nature, 
or  in  deified  men,  or  in  lower  animals,  or  in  artificial 
idols.  This  is  heathenism  in  its  various  gradations. 
But  even  where  these  grosser  errors  are  avoided  or 
escaped,  the  view  may  be  confined  to  what  the  older 
theologians  called  the  natural  attributes  of  God,  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  moral.  The  power,  wisdom, 
omnipresence,  and  omniscience  of  the  deity  may  be 
contemplated  alone.  Increase  the  light  so  far  as  to 
afford  a  glimpse  of  his  truth,  justice,  holiness,  benevo- 
lence, and  mercy.  What  an  advance  is  this  upon  the 
previous  conception,  even  of  an  allwise  and  almiglity 
being  !  It  is  scarcely  less  than  that  before  described  ! 
But  even  among  the  moral  attributes  of  deity  so 
called,  some  may  be  acknowledged  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  rest.  He  may  seem  all  mercy  and  no  justice, 
giving  license  to  transgression ;  or  all  justice  and  no 
mercy,  driving  the  guilty  to  despair.  So  too  with  his 
natural  perfections ;  his  wisdom  may  be  exalted  at 
the  cost  of  his  omnipotence,  a  wisdom  utterly  unable 
to  effect  its  own  designs ;  or  his  power  may  appear 
divorced  from  wisdom,  a  blind,  unintelligent  brute 
force.  All  these  varieties  of  error  are  not  only  possi- 
ble, but  have  been  really  exemplified  in  systems  of 
religion  and  philosophy,  and  in  the  tentative  inquiries 
of  the  individual  speculator  on  the  mode  of  the  divine 
existence.  But  let  these  discordant  views  be  brought 
into  harmony  and  due  proportion,  as  the  light  of  day 
reduces  objects  magnified  and  distorted  by  the  du- 
bious twilight,  and  how  astonishing  the  change !  It 
is  like  a  new  revelation.     What  before  appeared  in 


356  SERMONS. 

conflict  now  liarmonionslj  co-operates  ;  tilings  wliicli 
seemed  contradictory,  illustrate  one  another,  Tliis  is 
indeed  perfection.  Wliat  was  seen  before  was  but  a 
name,  this  is  tlie  reality  ;  that  was  called  a  perfect 
being,  but  tliis  is  one  ;  that  was  tbe  vague  conception 
of  a  God,  this  is  the  God,  this  the  true  God. 

But  even  here  experience  proves  that  men  may 
cling  to  the  idea  of  plurality,  as  something  at  least 
possible.  Why  may  there  not  be  many  perfect  be- 
ings ?  The  very  question  implies  some  defect  in  the 
idea  of  perfection.  That  supreme  perfection  in  one 
being  must  exclude  it  in  all  others,  is  a  higher  refine- 
ment to  which  even  wise  men  have  not  always  at- 
tained. Hence  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  unity ;  of 
monotheism  as  opposed  both  to  polytheism  and  to 
pantheism,  is  a  further  advance  upon  the  steps  which 
we  suppose  to  have  been  already  taken  in  the  ideal 
progress  of  a  soul  from  total  ignorance  of  God  towards 
just  and  clear  conceptions  of  his  nature.  Tliat  the 
unity  of  the  divine  nature  stands  nearer  to  the  end 
than  the  beginning  of  this  progress,  is  apparent  from 
the  fact,  that  in  proportion  as  the  unassisted  powers 
of  the  human  mind  have  risen  to  more  just  views  of 
the  deit}^,  the  number  of  the  beings  in  whom  it  was 
supposed  to  reside  has  always  been  diminished,  some- 
times from  many  thousands  to  a  few  hundreds,  then 
to  scores  and  tens,  until  it  has  reached  two,  where 
many,  with  the  Gnostics  and  the  Manichees,  and 
other  dualists  have  stuck  fast,  unable  to  account  for 
the  existence  of  evil,  except  uj)on  the  supposition  of 
two  co-eternal  but  antagonistic  principles.  When 
this  last  difficulty  has  been  vanquished,  and  the  one- 


I 


JOHN 


357 


ness  of  tlie  Godhead  seen  to  be  essential  to  his  abso- 
lute perfection,  men  have  sometimes  stood  still  in 
amazement  at  their  own  delay  in  reaching  a  conclu- 
sion which  now  seems  to  them  not  only  obvious  but 
unavoidable.  And  if  wc  may  suppose  a  single  mind 
to  have  been  brought  through  all  these  stages  of  con- 
viction and  illumination,  and  to  look  back  from  the 
last  through  those  by  which  it  was  preceded,  to  the 
distant  starting-point  of  its  ascent,  it  is  easy  to  con- 
ceive of  the  astonishment  with  which  such  an  inquirer 
would  survey  the  vast  strides  by  w^hich  he  had  j^assed 
from  darkness  to  twilight,  from  twilight  to  the  dawn, 
and  from  the  dawn  to  the  meridian  blaze  of  clearly 
revealed  truth — from  no  god  to  a  god,  from  a  god  to 
the  god,  the  first  to  whom  there  is  no  second,  the  whole 
in  whom  there  arc  no  parts,  "  tlie  only  true  God." 

I  say  this  is  a  glorious  doctrine.  It  is  a  glorious 
thing  to  know  the  true  God,  even  in  the  lowest  sense ; 
to  know  that  he  exists,  to  see  the  proofs,  to  feel  the 
necessity  of  his  existence.  Even  in  this,  supposing 
it  to  be  possessed  alone,  there  would  be  something 
elevating  and  enlarging  in  the  capacity  to  frame  such 
a  conception  of  the  true  God,  even  as  remote,  even  as 
an  object  of  mere  speculative  contemplation.  How 
much  more  to  feel  his  influence  !  If  it  is  a  privilege 
and  honour  to  behold,  by  the  artificial  aid  of  glasses, 
those  heavenly  bodies  which  directly  and  sensibly 
affect  us  least,  how  must  we  feel  towards  those  which 
are  revealed  to  the  unassisted  eye,  if  free  from  all  ob- 
struction and  disease,  and  whose  effects  are  matters 
of  perpetual  experience  ?  So,  too,  the  soul,  when  once 
brought  to  contemplate  God,  the  only  true  God,  feels 


358  SERMONS. 

a  desire,  or  at  least  a  need  of  some  more  intimate  re- 
lation to  him.  ISTot  contented  with  his  light,  it  craves 
his  heat,  -or  in  its  absence,  feels  itself  to  be  forever 
cold  and  dead.  Under  this  impression,  in  obedience 
to  the  law  of  our  original  constitution,  many  a  great 
but  half-enlightened  mind  has  yearned  after  intimate 
communion  with  that  God  whom  it  has  learned  to 
contemplate,  with  an  eye  of  speculative  reason,  as 
possessed  of  all  conceivable  perfection.  But  this  in- 
stinctive movement  is  repressed  by  new  discoveries, 
disclosing  the  necessity  of  further  and  still  clearer 
revelations  of  the  object  which  appeared  to  be  com- 
pletely unveiled  to  the  eye  of  the  spectator. 

I  have  supposed  the  inquirer,  in  the  process  which 
has  been  described,  to  set  out  from  himself,  and  by 
removing  all  that  seems  imperfect  and  corrupt,  and 
indefinitely  magnifying  all  that  we  regard  as  good  in 
his  own  constitution,  to  arrive  at  last  at  the  concep- 
tion of  a  God.  From  the  very  nature  of  this  process, 
it  involves  comparison  at  every  step,  between  God 
and  himself.  And  this  comparison  inevitably  carries 
with'it  a' conviction  of  inferiority,  a  sense  of  insignifi- 
cance and  meanness.  This  could  not  fail  to  arise, 
even  from  the  contemplation  of  God's  natural  perfec- 
tions, his  power  and  his  wisdom,  as  contrasted  with 
the  ignorance  and  weakness  of  his  creatures,  l^o 
wonder  that  it  should  be  so,  when  God  and  he  are  at 
the  opposite  extremities  of  the  scale,  through  which 
he  has  been  passing  in  his  quest  of  infinite  perfection. 
In  proportion  as  his  views  of  God  have  risen  higher, 
must  his  views  of  himself  have  become  more  hum- 
bling, even  in  reference  to  natural  qualities. 


JOHN  17,  3.  359 

But  lie  cannot  confine  his  view  to  these.  If 
reallj  enlightened  as  to  the  divine  nature,  he  must 
see  that  its  moral  perfections  are  not  only  real  but 
essential,  and  that  these  must  be  taken  into  the  ac 
count  in  measuring  the  interval  between  himself  and 
God.  This  new  and  more  complete  comparison  in- 
variably produces  a  deep  sense  not  only  of  physical 
inferiority,  but  of  moral  uncongeniality.  The  more 
correct  his  notion  of  God,  the  more  clearly  must  he 
see  that  holiness  is  necessarily  included  in  it,  and  the 
more  distinct  his  view  of  that  holiness,  the  more  vivid 
and  painful  the  sense  of  his  own  sinfulness,  because  it 
essentially  consists  in  opposition  to  that  holiness  of 
God  M'hicli  he  now  sees  so  clearly.  Tliis  is  in  fact 
necessary  to  a  just  view  of  the  divine  nature  on  the 
part  of  fallen  creatures.  Where  there  is  no  sense  of 
sin,  there  is  no  apppreciation  of  God's  holiness. 

This  is  to  fallen  man  the  natural  order  of  his 
thoug-hts  and  his  discoveries.  AVe  do  not  first  see 
God,  and  then  by  contrast  with  his  holiness,  discover 
what  sin  is.  It  might  be  so  with  other  beings,  or 
with  man  before  his  fall,  but  it  is  not  so  with  us.  It 
is  the  gnawing  sense  of  guilt  that  leads  men  to  their 
first  discoveries  of  God  in  the  perfection  of  his  nature. 
The  reproofs  of  conscience  presuppose  a  law,  discrim- 
inating between  right  and  wrong ;  and  such  a  law 
presupposes  a  lawgiver.  It  is  not  before  a  mere  ab- 
straction that  man  trembles,  but  before  a  personal 
avenarer.  While  the  conscience  still  remains  insensi- 
ble,  the  proofs  of  God's  existence  may  make  sb'ght  im- 
pressions on  the  understanding.  I3ut  wlien  conscience 
is  aroused,  and  man  confesses  to  himself,  if  not  to 


360  SERMONS. 

others,  that  he  is  a  sinner,  his  thoughts  are  in'esistibly 
borne  onward  to  the  bar  at  which  he  is  to  be  ar- 
raigned, to  the  judgment-seat  and  him  who  sits 
upon  it. 

This  indivisible  connection  between  conscience  and 
the  being  of  a  God  is  far  beyond  the  reach  of  sophis- 
try ;  this  witness  cannot  be  silenced  or  gainsayed,  and 
if  its  testimony  be  for  a  time  suppressed  or  disre- 
garded, it  will  yet  speak  out,  in  shrieks  or  whispers, 
in  some  emergency  of  life,  upon  the  death-bed,  or  in 
hell,  bringing  home  the  irresistible  conviction  that 
there  is  a  just  and  holy  God,  against  whom  we  have 
sinned,  and  from  wliom  we  are  to  receive  our  ever- 
lasting portion.  It  is  the  want  of  this  convincing 
evidence,  at  least  in  any  adequate  degree,  that  dims 
the  clearest  speeiilations  of  the  heathen  sages.  Be- 
cause they  had  no  due  sense  of  sin,  they  had  and 
could  have  no  correct  conception  of  that  God  against 
whom  all  sin  is  committed,  and  to  whose  very  nature, 
no  less  than  his  will,  it  is  essentially  opposed.  Hence 
too  the  wisest  of  the  heathen,  those  who  approached 
nearest  to  the  Scrij^tures  in  their  views  of  the  divine 
perfections,  are  precisely  those  who  seem  to  have 
had  the  most  definite,  experimental  sense  of  sin.  The 
same  thing  is  exemplified  in  Christian  errorists.  The 
further  they  recede  from  deep  and  thorough  views  of 
sin,  the  more  they  are  disposed  to  extenuate  it,  the 
more  jejune  do  they  become  in  their  conceptions  of 
the  divine  nature,  till  in  many  cases  God  becomes  t: 
them  a  name,  an  idea,  an  abstraction,  a  nonentity. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  clearer  the  conception 
of  God's  holiness,  the  deeper  the  conviction  of  man's 


JOHN  17,  3.  361 

vilenes^;  so  tliat  nothing  more  contributes  to  this  deep 
humiliation  than  enharging  views  of  the  divine  per- 
fection, forcing  the  self-convicted  sinner  to  exclaim 
with  Job,  "  I  have  heard  of  thee  by  tlic  hearing  of 
the  ear,  but  now  mine  eye  seetli  thee ;  wherefore  I 
abhor  myself  and  repent  in  dust  and  ashes  !  " 

And  this  sense  of  vileness  cannot  be  separated 
from  an  apprehension  of  God's  wrath,  and  a  desire  to 
escape  it.  The  man  can  no  longer  be  contented  with 
a  scientific  contemplation  of  the  deity ;  he  feels  his 
alienation,  and  his  need  of  reconciliation,  and  he  asks, 
can  God  comnnmicate  with  fallen  creatures  ?  will  his 
holiness  admit  of  it  ?  his  justice  sutler  it  ?  And  if  he 
can  thus  condescend  to  deal  with  sinners,  will  he? 
has  he  done  so  ?  has  he  ever  sent  a  message  to  man 
since  tlie  fall  ?  The  knowledge  that  he  can  renew  the 
intercourse  without  a  violation  of  his  attributes  is 
blessed  knowledge;  that  he  will  still  more  so  that  he 
has  already  actually  done  it  is  a  glorious  revelation, 
prompting  the  earnest,  passionate  inquiry,  when, 
where,  how?  -what  has  he  sent  ?  whom  has  he  sent? 

The  answer  to  this  question  brings  ns  on  still 
further  in  our  search  i'or  God.  lie  has  sent  us  a 
message  in  his  word,  indited  by  his  Spirit,  a  written 
revelation,  perfectly  consonant  with  that  in  nature, 
but  transcending  it,  and  going  far  beyond  it ;  so  that 
one  of  these  great  volumes  serves  to  illustrate  and 
expound  the  other.  When  we  0])en  this  new  volume, 
it  is  to  meet  a  new  disclosure.  lie  has  not  only  sent 
a  message,  but  a  messenger — a  living  representative, 
a  personal  ambassador.  lie  has  sent  not  only  his 
own  Spirit  in  his  word  and  in  the  hearts  of  men,  but 
VOL.  n. — 10 


363  SERMONS. 

his  owii  Son,  the  brightness  of  his  gloiy,  the -express 
image  of  his  person — not  a  created  representative,  hut 
God  manifest  in  the  flesli,  the  great  mystery  of  godh- 
ness,  or  of  the  Godhead,  the  unity  of  persons  in  that 
one  divine  essence — a  secret  hidden  from  pliilosophers, 
and  ];ekl  hack  even  from  the  chosen  people,  or  imper- 
fectly disclosed  to  them  in  types  and  symbols,  per- 
haps to  save  them  from  polytheism  until  they  were 
established  in  the  doctrine  of  God's  unity,  but  now 
brought  to  light  in  the  gospel,  a  new  and  glorious 
light,  ti'anscending  all  our  previous  discoveries — three 
persons  and  one  God — the  Son  and  the  Spirit  the 
revealers  of  the  Father,  sent  by  him  for  this  very 
purpose,  the  Spirit  in  his  w^ord  and  in  the  hearts  of 
his  people ;  but  his  mission  is  dependent  upon  that 
of  the  Son,  who  comes  in  human  flesh  to  reveal  the 
Father,  to  instruct,  to  conquer,  to  atone — first  as  the 
angel  of  the  covenant,  then  as  the  Messiah,  the  anoint- 
ed— as  a  prophet  to  instruct,  as  a  king  to  conquer,  as 
a  priest  to  expiate,  as  a  Saviour  to  redeem — the 
Christ — Jesus — both  together  Jesus  Christ — the  an- 
ointed Saviour,  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Son  of  man — 
God  and  sent  of  God — man  and  sent  to  man.  This  is 
indeed  the  only  true  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  he 
has  sent.  "What  a  privilege  to  know  this  Saviour,  not 
apart  from  God  or  independently  of  him,  but  as  essen- 
tially one  with  him.  I^one  knoweth  the  Father  but 
the  Son,  and  he  to  whom  the  Son  revealeth  him.  We 
cannot  know  God  without  him.  He  is  the  great  re- 
vealer  of  the  Father — his  "Word,  his  "U^isdom.  Our 
notions,  which  might  else  be  too  abstract,  are  em- 
bodied and  realized  in  him.     Even  in  theory,  our 


JOHN  17,  3.  363 

views  of  God  arc  too  vague  ^^itliout  Christ,  and  un- 
less taken  through  him.  But  there  is  still  another 
and  a  far  stronger  reason  why  we  must  come  to  God 
through  him.  God  is  holy,  and  we  are  sinners.  As 
an  absolute  sovereign,  as  a  righteous  judge,  he  is  for- 
ever inaccessible.  Our  God  is  a  consuming  fire,  to 
which  no  man  can  approach  and  live.  Christ  is  the 
way,  the  truth,  and  the  life.  "We  may  come  to  God 
through  him,  not  only  as  a  man  but  as  a  Saviour.  It 
is  through  this  new  and  living  way  that  we  may  ven- 
ture to  approach.  God  brings  us  near  to  himself 
through  the  blood  of  the  everlasting  covenant.  There 
is  forgiveness  with  him  that  he  may  be  feared.  We 
are  forgiven  that  we  may  know  him. 

It  is  only  thus  that  we  can  know  him,  and  that 
not  speculatively  but  experimentally.  We  may  know 
him  as  a  merciful  and  sin-pardoning  God.  "We  may 
know  him  as  ours  by  faith  and  a  self-appropriating 
knowledge.  In  our  own  happy  experience  we  may 
know,  not  only  that  he  is,  but  that  he  is  a  rewarder 
of  those  diligently  seeking  him.  "We  may  know  him 
as  a  child  knows  its  parent,  with  a  knowledge  which 
cannot  be  mistaken,  or  confound  its  object  with  an- 
other— a  knowledge  necessarily  including  trust,  es- 
teem, and  intimate  communion.  To  know  God  is  to 
love  him.  All  alienation  here  implies  some  defect  of 
knowledge.  To  know  God  in  Christ  is  to  know  him 
as  a  Saviour,  and  to  trust  in  him  as  such.  To  know 
him  is  to  know  his  Holy  Spirit,  and  to  seek  his  influ- 
ences, and  to  have  them.  All  this  is  really  included 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  only  true  God  and  Jesus 
Christ  whom  he  has  sent. 


364  SERMON'S.      ' 

NoM^  this  experimental  knowledge  of  the  highest 
good,  when  imparted  to  a  lost  and  ruined  world,  is 
life.  Look  abroad  npon  the  valley  of  dry  bones  by 
which  yon  are  surrounded, — see  all  the  elements  of 
our  moral  constitution  dislocated,  decomposed,  dis- 
solved,— a  wide-spread  scene  of  confusion  and  cor- 
ruption, in  which  matter  and  form  may  still  be  recog- 
nized. But  life  is  wanting — all  is  dead.  Philosophy 
has  lavished  its  experiments  npon  it  for  a  course  of 
ages,  but  with  no  effect,  except  to  aggravate  the 
ghastliness  of  death  by  occasional  spasms  of  apparent 
life.  To  this  scene  of  mournful  desolation  and  decay 
introduce  the  knowledge  of  God,  the  true  God,  the 
only  true  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  he  has  sent. 
This  is  precisely  what  was  wanting — it  is  life,  it  is 
life  from  the  dead :  the  effect  is  instantaneous  and 
electric  ;  the  graves  of  humanity  are  oj^ened ;  see,  it 
bursts  its  cerements  and  comes  forth  in  a  blessed 
resurrection,  alive  to  God,  to  holiness,  to  happiness  ; 
the  paralyzed,  faculties  begin  to  move  ;  the  affections 
are  restored  to  their  forsaken  objects ;  the  harmony 
and  balance  of  the  powers  is  reinstated  ;  darkness  is 
turned  to  light,  weakness  to  strength,  death  to  life ; 
old  things  are  passed  away,  all  things  are  become 
new. 

But  what  if  this  neAv  life,  all  glorious  as  it  is, 
should  prove  to  be  but  transient,  evanescent,  like  a 
pleasing  dream  But  see,  it  stretches  out  into  the 
future,  and  as  it  advances,  all  checks  are  removed. 
It  swells,  it  grows  ;  life  f:om  the  dead  is  followed  by 
no  new  vicissitude  :  man  lives  to  die  no  more.  We 
may  look  for  decay  and  retrocession,  but  it  comes  not. 


JOHN  17,  3.  365 

God  is  unchangeable,  so  is  the  new  relation  of  the 
soul  to  him  ;  it  cannot  fail  until  the  mercy  of  the 
Father  and  the  merit  of  the  Son,  and  the  influences 
of  the  Spirit  are  exhausted  ;  it  is  a  new  creation  ;  it 
is  a  new  world  ;  and  the  life,  instead  of  failing,  grows 
more  real  and  abundant  till  it  reaches  the  verge  of 
this  world,  and  launches  forth  into  a  new  state  of  ex- 
istence, but  not  there  to  die  ;  it  lives  in  those  waters 
of  eternal  being,  buflets  the  waves  of  that  shoreless 
ocean,  rises  and  falls  upon  their  crests,  and  by  them 
is  borne  on  and  on  beyond  our  view.  It  is  forever. 
Yes,  it  is  forever.  Yes,  this  new  life  is  eternal.  Well 
might  the  great  Iligli  Priest  of  our  profession,  in  his 
sacerdotal  prayer,  say  of  his  followers  and  of  all  who 
should  believe  upon  him  through  their  word — "  And 
this  is  life  eternal,  that  they  might  know  thee,  the 
only  true  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  thou  hast 
sent." 

To  be  ignorant  of  all  this  is  a  terrible  cuiidiridu  ; 
but  there  is  another  still  more  fearful,  I  mean  that  uf 
knowing  it  but  only  as  a  speculative  trutli.  \  cs, 
the  thickest  darkness  of  the  heathen  mind  in  refer- 
ence to  these  great  truths,  though  more  degrading  in 
itself,  and  in  its  present  effects,  is  less  appalling  in 
its  influence  on  character  and  destiny,  than  barren, 
unavailing,  unbelieving  knowledge.  Why  ?  because 
opposition  or  indifference  to  the  truth  is  never  a  mere 
intellectual  deficiency  or  error,  but  invariably  tho 
fruit  of  moral  dispositions.  The  ear  which  will  not 
hear  when  God  speaks,  and  the  eye  which  cannot  see 
with  all  the  light  which  he  aflbrds,  are  sins  of  a  cor- 
rupted and  hard  heart ;  and  he  who  flnds  himself  in 


366  SERMONS. 

this  position,  instead  of  pit^-ing  'he  blindness  of  the 
heathen  and  the  doom  to  which  it  is  conducting  tlieni, 
may  ahnost  envy  their  superior  chance  of  clemency 
at  God's  bar,  in  comparison  with  those  who  know  and 
even  boast  of  knowing  who  he  is  and  w'hat  he  has 
already  done  for  man's  salvation,  and  yet  prowdl}''  say 
by  every  action  of  their  lives  that  they  will  not  be 
saved  in  this  way,  or  rather  that  they  need  not  to  be 
saved  at  all.  For  this,  disguise  it  as  you  will,  my 
hearer,  is  the  genuine  spirit  of  your  life,  if  not  the 
language  of  your  lips,  so  long  as  you  remain  contented 
with  a  cold  intellectual  assent  to  the  great  doctrine 
of  one  only  true  God  and  of  Jesus  Christ  Avhom  he 
has  sent.  For  nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that  tins 
one  true  God  is  a  God  of  infinite  holiness  and  justice, 
and  that  these  perfections  of  his  nature  make  the  pun- 
ishment of  sin  an  absolute  necessity,  and  that  this 
necessity  can  only  be  avoided  in  the  person  of  the 
sinner  by  the  transfer  of  his  guilt  to  another,  and  that 
Jesus  Christ  whom  God  has  sent  was  sent  for  this 
very  purpose. 

These  are  not  mere  circumstantial  adjuncts  of  the 
great  truths  which  we  have  been  considering,  but  in- 
tegral and  essential  elements.  There  is  no  revelation 
of  the  one  true  God  which  is  not  a  revelation  of  his 
holiness,  i.  e.  the  opposition  of  his  nature  to  all  sin, 
for  what  is  sin  but  opposition  to  his  nature  and  his 
wnll,  and  how  can  he  but  be  opposed  to  his  own  oppo- 
site, or  fail,  in  the  exercise  of  infinite  rectitude  and 
power,  to  destroy  it?  And  again,  if  you  exclude  from 
your  idea  of  the  Christ  whom  he  has  sent  the  cajDacity 
and  will  to  save,  by  self-substitution  for  the  actual 


JOHN  17,  3.  357 

offender,  what  is  left  ?  If  yon  lea  re  this  out,  you  have 
not  even  a  correct  intellectual  apprehension  of  the 
one  true  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  he  has  sent, 
and  must  suffer  the  same  consequences  from  the  want 
of  this  essential  knowledge  that  you  pity  in  the  doom 
of  the  poor  heathen. 

If  you  take  all  this  in — if  you  know  God  as  a  God 
of  perfect  holiness  and  justice,  and  Jesus  Christ  whom 
he  has  sent  as  a  divine  and  all-sufhcient  Saviour,  and 
yet  bid  defiance  to  the  one  by  refusing  to  accept  the 
other,  your  fate  can  differ  from  the  heathen's  only  as 
the  fate  of  one  who  stumbles  in  the  dark  ought  to 
differ  from  the  fall  of  one  who  rushes  to  destruction 
with  his  eyes  wide  open,  and  amidst  the  blaze  of 
noon.  The  course  of  duty  and  of  safety  then  is  plain. 
Repent,  believe,  submit  to  God  by  accepting  of  his 
Son,  and  thus  prove  by  your  own  experience  that  this 
is  indeed  eternal  life,  to  know  the  only  true  God  and 
■Jesus  Christ  whom  he  has  sent. 


XX. 

Psalm  51,  IV. — The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit :  a  broken 
and  a  contrite  heart,  0  God,  thou  wilt  not  despise. 

The  process  of  salvation  is,  and  must  remain,  a 
mystery  to  those  who  never  shall  experience  its  power. 
They  may  apprehend  correctly  the  great  doctrines  of 
religion  ;  they  may  make  nice  and  accurate  distinc- 
tions in  theology ;  they  may  speculate  ingeniously, 
and  reason  powerfully,  as  to  the  nature  and  the  means 
of  conversion  ;  but  they  never  can  be  made  to  under- 
stand, without  experience,  the  mysteries  of  saving  and 
regenerating  grace  ;  the  practical  mysteries  of  that 
deep,  noiseless,  thorough,  total,  lasting  change,  ef- 
fected in  the  hearts  of  men  by  one  touch  of  God's 
finger — by  one  breath  of  his  Spirit.  And  yet  the  work 
is  goino^  on  amono;  them  without  ceasino;.  Ah  !  how 
little  do  the  unconverted  know  of  what  is  passing  in 
the  bosoms  of  their  neighbours.  How  little  does  their 
shallow,  superficial  experience,  teach  them  of  the 
depths  of  their  own  hearts,  until  the  fountains  of  that 
great  abyss  are  broken  up  and  the  windows  of  heaven 
opened  from  above  by  the  same  almighty  power. 

The   sanctuary  where  the  broken-hearted  sinner 


rSALM  51,  17,  3g9 

seeks  and*  finds  a  refuge,  may  be  likened  to  a  temple 
in  the  midst  of  a  great  city,  passed  by  thousands 
every  hour,  but  entered  only  by  a  few  ;  and  yet  it  is 
separated  from  the  crowded  thoroughfare  by  no  solid 
wall,  or  massive  gates,  but  by  a  veil  or  curtain  which 
the  hand  of  faith  and  penitence  may  raise  at  pleasure, 
and  through  which  a  strange  light  glimmers  from 
within  and  strange  sounds  fall  upon  the  ear  of  passers 
by.  And  ever  and  anon  some  one  stops  to  gaze  and 
listen  ;  he  stands  still  for  a  moment  and  then  hurries 
on ;  another  stops,  and  moved  by  curiosity  draws 
nearer  to  the  entrance,  listens,  wavers,  turns  away, 
and  passes  on.  Another  draws  still  nearer,  looks  and 
listens,  laj^s  his  hand  upon  the  curtain,  and  then 
draws  back  from  the  very  threshold  and  is  seen  no 
more.  Another  stops  to  look  and  listen,  not  from  idle 
curiosity,  but  weary,  weak,  and  sick  at  heart,  des- 
pairing of  a  refuge  from  the  evils  M'hicli  pursue  him ; 
he  falls  prostrate  on  the  threshold — the  veil  rises  for 
a  moment — he  is  drawn  within  its  shelter,  and  is  seen 
no  more. 

But  I  have  represented  some  who  do  not  enter,  as 
listeners  at  the  threshold  ;  these  are  they  who  treat 
religion  with  respect  and  curiosity,  but  never  know  its 
power.  As  they  stand  and  gaze  at  the  mysterious 
shadows  which  are  thrown  upon  the  curtain  from 
within,  the  sound  of  many  mingled  voices  strikes  their 
ears.  These  they  know  to  be  the  voices  of  regenerated 
sinners,  the  elect  of  God.  But  it  is  not  the  voice  of 
triumph  which  they  thought  to  hear ;  it  is  not  the 
voice  of  them  that  shout  for  masteiy,  nor  yet  the 
voice  of  them  that  sing  for  joy  ;  it  is  more  like  "  the 

VOL.  II.  —  IG* 


§70  SERMONS. 

voice  of  them  that  cry  for  being  overcome/'  It  is  a 
voice  of  suppressed  wailing  from  a  raultitiiae  of  bro- 
ken and  of  breaking  hearts,  going  up  like  melancholy 
music  to  the  ears  of  the  Lord  God  of  Sabaoth  !  As 
the  veil  of  the  temple  is  shaken  by  the  wind,  the  lis- 
tener gets  a  glimpse  of  its  interior;  he  sees  an  altar 
— an  altar  of  atonement — not  an  altar  of  oblation — 
not  an  altar  of  burnt  offering — but  an  altar  of  incense. 
The  bloody  sacrifice  has  been  already  offered,  and  ac- 
cepted, and  applied.  The  blood  has  been  sprinkled 
and  the  vapour  has  ascended  ;  and  the  penitent  who 
laid  his  hand  upon  the  victim's  head  approaches  to 
the  golden  altar,  not  to  purchase  pardon  but  to  offer 
gifts.  And  on  the  altar  the  oblation  lies — a  heart — 
a  bruised  and  broken  heart — a  heart  once  stained, 
alas,  how  deeply,  but  now  fresh  from  the  laver  of  re- 
generation ;  a  heart  pierced  with  many  sorrows,  the 
deep  scars  of  which  remain,  but  now  melted  and  bro- 
ken by  the  fire  and  the  hammer  of  God's  eflicacious 
word.  There  it  lies  encompassed  in  the  newly-kindled 
flame  of  pure  and  holy  love  ;  and  as  it  burns  there 
unconsumed,  a  sweet  and  solemn  voice,  like  the  voice 
of  a  parent  to  a  suffering  child,  says :  "  My  son,  give 
me  thine  heart ; "  and  another  one,  still  tremulous 
with  weeping,  cries  out  from  beneath  the  altar  :  "  My 
heart  is  fixed,  oh  God,  my  heart  is  fixed  ; "  and  then 
a  multitude  of  voices,  like  the  sound  of  rushing  waters, 
are  heard  saying  all  together  :  "  The  sacrifices  of  God 
are  a  broken  spirit :  a  broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O 
God,  thou  wilt  not  desijise." 

It  is  this  that  the  proud,  the   sensual,  and   the 
frivolous  cannot  imderstand.      It  is  this  mysterious 


PSALM  51,  17.  371 

sacrifice  of  broken  hearts  at  wliicli  tliey  wonder  or  at 
which  they  laugh.  Apart  from  all  mistake  as  to  the 
fundamental  doctrine  of  atonement,  they  still  stumble 
at  this  stumbling  stone.  Who  can  tell  what  merri- 
ment the  men  of  this  world  have  derived,  in  this  and 
other  ages,  from  the  sighs  and  tears  of  penitence  ? 
How  many  sound  and  good  hearts,  in  the  world's  es- 
timation and  their  own,  have  been  made  glad  and 
proud  of  their  own  greatness,  by  the  anguish  of  some 
broken  spiiit,  by  the  agonizing  throbs  of  some  contrite 
and  broken  heart.  In  multitudes  of  cases  the  con- 
tempt and  the  derision  have  been  never  known  to 
him  who  was  their  object,  but  in  multitudes  of  others, 
the  first  pangs  of  godly  sorrow  have  been  strangely 
mingled  with  the  painful  sense  that  all  who  pass  by 
wag  the  head  and  shoot  the  lip  in  bitter  scorn;  and 
that  the  man  whom  God  has  smitten  is  the  song  of 
the  drunkards  in  their  secret  haunts  or  in  their  pub- 
lic gatherings  to  strengthen  one  another's  hands  and 
hearts  in  Satan's  service.  Under  the  pressure  of  these 
complicated  pains,  the  penitent  is  often  ready  to  cry 
out :  "  For  thy  sake  I  have  borne  reproach :  shame 
hath  covered  my  face.  They  that  sit  in  the  gate 
speak  against  me,  and  I  am  the  song  of  the  drunk- 
ards. Keproach  hath  broken  my  heart,  and  I  am  full 
of  heaviness.  I  looked  for  some  to  take  pity,  but 
there  was  none,  and  for  comforters,  but  I  found  none." 
The  dread  of  this  luis  stifled  the  incipient  convictions 
of  its  thousands  and  its  tens  of  thousands. 

Are  there  none  now  present,  who  have  thus  been 
driven  back,  first  to  silence,  then  to  apathy,  and  then 
to  sin?     Are  there  none  now  present  who  at  this  very 


372  SERMONS. 

moment  are  a^^are  of  sucli  a  stmggle  in  their 
hearts  ?  And  are  there  none,  nay  rather,  are  there 
not  very  many,  who  can  now  thank  God  that  they 
have  passed  tlirough  this  fiery  ordeal  ? — who  re- 
member when  reproach  had  well  nigh  broken  their 
hearts  too,  nntil  the  sense  of  man's  derision  w^as  ab- 
sorbed in  that  of  their  own  guilt  before  God  ;  nntil 
they  felt  that  their  excessive  sensibility  to  men's  re- 
proaches was  a  relic  of  unbroken  pride  ;  until  they 
saw  that  they  were  but  sharers,  and  small  sharers,  in 
the  Lord's  reproach  ;  and  comparing  their  own  trials 
as  to  this  point  M'itli  his  buffetings  and  cruel  mockings, 
they  were  suddenly  inflamed  with  zeal  to  vindicate 
his  honour  and  forget  their  own,  crying  out,  "  The 
zeal  of  thine  house  hath  eaten  me  up  :  the  reproaches 
of  them  that  reproached  thee  are  fallen  upon  me." 
Then  were  they  made  to  understand  that  the  best 
cure  for  a  heart  which  pride  has  broken,  is  a  heart 
bruised  and  broken  on  account  of  sin  ;  and  that  while 
this  brokenness  of  heart  is  matter  of  derision  to  the 
worldling,  "  the  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit : 
a  broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not 
despise." 

How  different  from  this  is  the  experience  of  the 
unconverted,  unsaved  sinner,  even  when  his  theoreti- 
cal opinions  of  the  method  of  salvation  are  correct. 
Let  us  suppose  the  case  of  one  w'ell  instructed  in  the 
doctrines  of  religion  and  unable  to  obliterate  the  deep 
intellectual  impressions  of  his  early  training,  but  a 
stranger  to  the  power  of  religion  in  his  heart.  He 
knows  and  will  acknowledge  that  he  is  a  sinner ;  that 
his  sins  deserve  the  wrath  and  curse  of  God  in  this 


PSALM  51,  17.  373 

life  and  the  life  to  come  ;  that  if  saved  at  all  he  must 
be  saved   through  Christ;  that  no  outward  acts  or 
mental  exercises  of  his  own  can  expiate  the  guilt  of 
sin  ;  that  even  faith,  to  which  eternal  life  is  promised, 
has  no  merit  in  the  sight  of  God,  hut  is  a  mere  recep- 
tion of  the  grace  which  brings  salvation.     All  this 
the  man  appears  to  understand,  and  professes  to  be- 
lieve ;  and  under  some  auspicious  influence,  he  re- 
solves, perhaps,  to  act  upon  his  principles,  believing 
as  he  docs  that  atonement  has  been  made  ;  and  rely- 
ing, as  he  thinks,  upon  the  merit  of  that  sacrifice,  he 
wonders  that  he  has  not  the  assurance  of  forgiveness, 
]oj  and  peace  in  believing,  peace  of  conscience,  peace 
wnth  God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.     But  alas, 
he  has  to  learn  that,  though  the  sacrifice  which  pur- 
chases salvation,  has  been  offered  once  for  all  upon 
the  cross,  and  though  he  cannot  cast  an  atom's  weight 
into  the  scale  of  Christ's  preponderating  merits,  there 
is  still  a  sacrifice  which  /le  must  offer,  and  witliout 
which  lie  can  never  be  accepted ;  a  sacrifice  so  far 
from  being  meritorious  or  in  any  degree  capable  of 
making  expiation  for  the  sins  of  him  Avho  n.akes  it, 
that  it  never  can  be  offered  but  by  one  wliose  sin  is 
already  covered,  and  to  whom  the  Lord  imputeth  not 
iniquity.     The  expiatory  altar  of  the  Jewish  ritual 
was  situated  in  the  open  court,  and  only  they  wlio 
passed  by  this  could  draw  near  to  the  altar  of  incense. 
This  secondary  sacrifice  can   be   accepted   from   no 
hands  but  those  which  arc  already  reeking  with  the 
blood  of  the  sin  offering.     In  short  tlie  sinner  knows 
not,  that  although  his  guilt  can  be  removed  by  noth- 
ing but  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  his  interest  in  that 


374  SERMONS. 

atonement  can  be  proved  by  nothing  but  the  sacri- 
fice of  himself — "  a  living  sacrifice,  holy  and  accept- 
able unto  God." 

Here  is  the  rock  on  which  the  Antinomian  of  every 
age  concerning  faith  has  made  shipwreck.  On  the 
pretext  that  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  all-sufiicient,  he 
withholds  the  oblation  of  himself  to  God.  Because 
he  has  no  merit,  he  beheves  he  has  no  duty,  and 
throws  ofl"  at  once  his  sense  of  goodness  and  his  sense 
of  obligation  ;  and  because  the  grace  of  God  abounds 
to  sinners,  he  goes  on  in  sin,  that  grace  may  abound. 
But  the  day  is  coming  when  the  M'ood,  hay,  and  stub- 
ble of  such  hopes  shall  be  consumed  in  the  crackling 
furnace  of  God's  righteous  retributions  ;  and  even 
the}^  who  thus  abused  the  doctrine  of  gratuitous  sal- 
vation, and  the  all-sufficiency  of  Christ's  atonement, 
shall  see  b}'  the  glare  of  the  fi'nal  conflagration,  that 
the  sacrifice  of  Christ  for  any  individual,  upon  the 
altar  of  atonement,  is  inseparably  connected  with  the 
self-immolation  of  the  man  himself  upon  the  altar  of 
God's  service  ;  that  no  man  avIio  rejects  the  one  can 
lay  claim  to  the  other  ;  that  Christ  gives  the  purchase 
of  his  agonies  to  no  one  who  refuses  or  nesrlects  to 
give  himself  to  God  ;  and  that  although  this  self- 
sacrifice  is  not  demanded  as  a  previous  condition  of 
access  to  Christ,  it  does  arise  from  it  as  a  necessary 
consequence,  and  does  therefore  serve  as  an  infallible 
criterion  of  any  person's  interest  in  Christ's  atone- 
ment. 

But  let  us  suppose  the  sinner  to  be  now  convinced 
of  this  important  truth  ;  to  believe,  that  while  his  only 
hope  of  everlasting  life  is  in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ, 


PSALM  51,  17.  375 

he  has  no  right  to  believe  that  it  was  offered  up  for 
him,  until  he  offers  up  himself,  through  Christ,  to 
God.  Here,  again,  he  is  liable  to  fatal  error.  He 
may  wash  his  hands  in  innocency  and  so  compass  the 
altar  of  God ;  he  may  bind  the  sacrifice  with  cords  to 
the  horns  of  the  altar ;  he  may  offer  it  upon  the  altar 
with  the  most  imposing  rites ;  but  no  sweet  savour 
rises  from  it  to  the  throne  of  God.  The  victim  and 
the  offerer  are  alike  rejected — 

"For  God  abhors  the  sacrifice 
Where  not  the  heart  is  found." 

The  man  has  brought  his  body  and  his  outward 
wealth,  his  time,  his  talents,  and  his  acquisitions, 
but  his  heart  is  left  behind.  This  is  the  error  of  the 
formalist  who,  whether  right  or  wrong  in  his  concep- 
tions of  the  method  of  salvation,  whether  trusting  in 
his  own  works  as  an  adjunct  of  Christ's  sacrifice,  or 
believing  truly  that  the  sacrifice  is  all-snfficient,  but 
that  it  requires  and  indeed  produces  a  self-sacrifice 
on  man's  part,  fails,  after  all,  to  present  the  right  ob- 
lation. Ah,  how  many  well-instructed  and  appar- 
ently sincere  professors  are  there,  who,  acknowledg- 
ing their  obligation  to  give  all  to  God,  and  ])rofessing 
so  to  do,  do  in  lact  withliold  the  very  thing  which 
God  requires,  endeavouring  to  please  him  and  to  satisfy 
their  consciences  by  strict  compliance  with  external 
rules,  without  a  yielding  up  of  the  affections  of  the 
soul  and  of  the  soul  itself,  which  is  their  reasonable 
service. 

Bat  the  heart  is  not  only  a  necessary  part  cf  the 
required  oblation.     It  is  itself  the  very  thing  required. 


376  SERMONS. 

It  is  the  heart  which  gives  vitality  and  value  to  the 
rest.  It  is  because  words  and  actions  come  forth  from 
the  heart,  that  they  liave  any  vaUie  ;  and  without  this, 
they  are  worthless,  nay,  oiFensive,  as  professing  to  be 
what  they  are  not.  Not  only  is  the  sinner  bound  to 
sacrifice  himself  upon  the  altar  of  God's  service,  but 
to  sacrifice  his  heart,  which  is  indeed  himself. 

This  is  a  second  stage  in  the  progress  of  discovery 
to  which  we  may  suppose  the  inquirer's  mind  to  have 
attained.  He  knows  that  if  Christ  gave  himself  for 
him,  he  must  give  his  heart  without  reserve  to  Christ. 
And  here  again  begins  to  show  itself  that  spiritual 
blindness  which  has  been  before  described.  The  man 
consents  to  give  his  heart  to  God,  just  as  it  is ;  but 
what  a  heart !  It  must  be  laid  upon  the  altar  whole, 
unbroken  and  unmelted.  He  consents,  perhaps,  that 
it  should  first  be  cleansed.  He  is  willing  that  those 
deep,  dark  stains  should  be  washed  out,  and  that 
those  ulcers  should  be  healed  by  the  application  of 
another's  blood.  This  is  all  that  he  will  ofifer — all 
he  has  to  give.  But  ah,  what  changes  are  to  pass 
upon  that  heart  before  it  is  accepted.  How  little  does 
he  think  that  it  must  first  be  pierced  and  bruised  and 
broken  !  Or  if  informed  of  this  necessity,  how  quick- 
1}^  does  his  pride  revolt !  The  natural  man  may  be 
brought  to  acknowledge  his  corruption,  and  to  assent 
in  profession  to  the  only  means  by  which  it  can  be 
purged ;  but  he  never  can  divest  himself  of  his  old 
feelings  with  respect  to  the  firmness  and  the  stoutness 
of  his  heart.  He  may  plead  guilty  to  a  mere  superficial 
depravation,  but  he  openly  or  secretly  exults  in  his 
integrity  and  strength  of  heart.     He  boasts  in  time  of 


PSALM  51,  17.  377 

trouble  that  his  heart  does  not  fail  him,  and  prides 
himself  upon  his  openness  of  heart.  He  would  rather 
be  thonglit  to  have  a  heart  of  iron  than  a  heart  of 
wax.  He  lays  his  hand  upon  his  heart  as  if  to  swear 
by  it ;  and,  in  short,  deifies  that  very  heart  whicli  is 
deceitful  above  all  things  and  desperately  wicked; 
and  with  these  very  feelings,  and  especially  this  con- 
fidence and  pride  in  the  integrity  and  firmness  of  his 
heart,  he  sometimes  draws  near  to  the  altar  of  his 
God,  tliere  to  offer  up  his  hard  heart  as  a  sacrifice. 
But  there  he  is  thrust  back,  with  an  assurance  that 
his  stony  heart  must  first  be  broken.  The  result  of 
this  discoveiy  is  very  different  in  different  cases. 
Some  are  disgusted  by  it,  and  go  back  forever.  Oth- 
ers, towards  whom  God  has  purposes  of  mercy,  are 
subjected  to  a  process  which  results  in  an  effectual 
contrition  of  their  hearts.  However  reluctant  they 
ma}^  feel  at  first  to  undergo  the  change,  the  time  comes 
when  they  not  only  feel  it,  but  rejoice  in  it.  As  the 
same  apostle  who  at  first  said.  Lord,  thou  shalt  never 
wash  my  feet,  said  at  last,  Xot  my  feet  only,  but  also 
my  hands  and  my  head. 

And  thus  they  are  brought  by  the  winding  course 
of  their  experience  to  the  knowledge  and  belief  of 
tliese  three  propositions  :  1.  Every  sinner  who  is  saved 
through  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  must  also  sacrifice 
himself  to  God.  2.  This  self-immolation  must  include 
tlie  lieart,  or  rather  it  is  really  an  offering  of  the  heart. 
3.  The  heart  thus  offered  nnist  be  broken  and  con- 
trite. 

But  it  is  now  time  to  consider  in  what  this  broken 
ness  of  heart  consists.     The  figure  is  a  common  one 


378  SERMONS. 

perhaps  in  all  languages.  In  our  own,  it  is  one  of 
those  expressions  which  most  vividly  arouse  the  sym- 
pathies,  and  with  which  are  associated  some  of  the 
most  tender  and  affecting  images  that  fancy  can  cre- 
ate or  memory  recall.  Who  is  there  here,  however 
narrow  his  experience,  who  cannot  call  to  mind  some 
memorable  case  of  deej)  affliction,  in  which  the  hopes 
of  the  sufferer,  so  far  as  this  life  is  concerned,  were 
not  only  nipped  in  the  bud,  or  blasted  in  the  flower, 
but  suddenly  and  violently  plucked  up  by  the  roots,  in 
which  the  affections  which  had  twined  themselves 
around  earthly  objects,  were  at  once  and  forever  snap- 
ped asunder,  and  the  soul  became  dead  to  the  world, 
not  by  spiritual  crucifixion,  but  by  a  providential 
flash  and  thunderbolt.  It  is  to  such  cases  of  abrupt 
separation  from  the  hopes  and  the  enjoyments  of  the 
present  life,  that  we  familiarly  apply  the  figure  of  a 
broken  heart.  And  the  phrase  appears  especially  ap- 
propriate and  natural,  when  those  who  snfler  are  in 
character  and  circumstances  such  as  to  excite  compas- 
sion unalloyed  with  any  harsh  or  acrimonious  feeling 
— such  as  caimot  or  will  not  seek  a  stoical  relief  in 
moody  silence,  or  in  proud  endurance — such  as  suffer 
without  fault,  or  through  the  fault  of  others — and, 
above  all,  such  as  suffer  without  hope  of  reparation  in 
the  present  life.  It  is  of  such  that  we  are  wont  to 
speak  as  broken-hearted ;  and  when  the  sufferings  of 
such  extend  to  the  sudden  or  gradual  decay  of  life, 
they  are  said  familiarly  to  die  of  broken  hearts, 

I  refer  to  the  ordinary  usage  of  this  phrase,  in  order 
to  illustrate  its  true  sense  in  application  to  contrition 
and  repentance — not  because  there  is  any  sort  of  sane* 


PSALM  51,  17.  3Y9 

tity  belonging  to  the  sorrow  of  this  world  which  work 
eth  death.  An  eminent  writer  upon  practical  religion, 
speaks  of  that  compound  of  pride  and  madness,  which 
is  usually  termed  a  broken  heart ;  and  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  that  the  broken  hearts  of  poetr^^  and  ro- 
mantic fiction  are  too  often  such,  as  if  they  really  ex- 
isted, would  be  followed  in  the  next  life  by  a  broken- 
ness  of  spirit,  which  no  balm  would  ever  heal,  and  no 
physician  ever  bind.  Still,  the  very  application  of 
this  metaphor  to  cases  of  profound  and  hopeless  sor- 
row, even  where  it  is  essentially  unholy  in  its  origin 
and  sinful  in  its  exercise,  will  help  ns  to  illustrate  its 
true  import  when  applied  to  godly  sorrow,  as  a  sor- 
row wliich  involves  a  loss  of  hope  and  a  privation  of 
enjo^nnents  and  dependences  long  fondly  cherished. 
"While  the  heart  remains  unbroken  on  account  of  sin, 
there  are  certain  prospects  upon  which  the  eye  is 
prone  to  fasten  and  to  feed — the  illusive  forms  of  fu- 
ture happiness  arc  seen  through  certain  vistas  and  in 
certain  quarters  only.  To  these  points,  when  the  mind 
conceives  the  thought  of  being  happy,  it  instinctively 
reverts.  But  when  the  bruising  and  the  breaking 
process  has  begun,  these  vistas  are  obstructed,  and 
these  prospects  fade  away,  and  when  the  mind  in- 
stinctively reverts  to  its  accustomed  points  of  joyful 
expectation,  they  are  veiled  in  darkness.  Thus  its 
fixed  associations  are  dissolved,  its  ancient  liopes  un- 
settled"^ and  its  ancient  fears  give  place  to  new  ones ; 
so  that,  in  the  confusion  of  its  passions  and  affections, 
the  heart  may  be  described  as  being  broken  in  pieces. 
But  the  change  which  is  properly  and  specially 
denoted  by  this  figure,  is  the  change  from  insensibility 


380  SERMONS. 

and  aj)atli3';  to  a  directly  opposite  condition — to  a  keen 
susceptibility  of  shame  and  grief.  It  aS  equally  amaz- 
ing to  behold  how  mnch  the  heart  can  bear,  -while  yet 
unbroken,  and  how  little  is  enough  to  make  it  quiver 
with  emotion,  when  the  hammer  has  descended,  and 
the  rock  is  dashed  in  pieces.  If  the  secrets  of  two 
hearts  could  be  disclosed  at  the  same  moment — for 
example,  in  the  hearing  of  a  single  sermon — we  should 
see  the  one  receiving,  with  a  calmness  too  unnatural  to 
be  called  philosophical,  the  most  momentous  doc- 
trines, while  the  other,  by  the  same  enunciation  of  the 
same  things,  is  not  only  agitated  but  convulsed.  The 
same  wind  which  excites  the  living  waters  of  Gennes- 
aret  into  a  storm,  is  said  to  leave  no  trace  of  its  effect 
upon  the  sniooth  and  silent  waters  of  Asphaltites,  the 
sea  of  death.  But  the  difference  of  feeling  in  the 
cases  now  supposed,  however  great,  can  never  be  dis- 
tinctly seen  by  others. 

There  is  a  case,  however,  which  presents  the  con- 
trast, at  successive  turns  indeed,  but  with  a  vivid 
clearness  to  the  eye  of  an  observer.  I  mean  when 
the  observer  is  himself  the  subject  of  both  states  of  feel- 
ing ;  when  he  looks  back  with  amazement  to  the  time 
when  he  could  hear  with  cool  indifference,  the  same 
things  which  now  freeze  his  blood,  or  make  it  boil. 
Has  it  never  happened  in  your  experience,  that  you 
have  been  apprised  of  some  appalling  danger  after  it 
•^vas  past ;  of  your  having  just  before  been  standing 
on  a  spot  where  the  motion  of  a  limb  in  one  direction 
would  have  been  your  death,  a  death  perhaps  of  ag- 
gravated horror?  and  when  thus  apprized  of  your 
deliverance,  do  you  not  remember  the  strange  thrill 


PSALM  51,  17.  381 

of  horror  wliicli  at  once  sliot  tlirougli  yon,  suspending 
for  a  time  your  sense  of  safety,  and  recalling  the  sen- 
sations proper  to  your  former  state  ?  This  may  serve 
to  illustrate  very  faintly  the  retrospective  feelings  of 
the  sinner,  when  his  heart  is  broken,  in  relation  to 
his  exercises  while  it  was  yet  whole.  But  with  this 
difference,  that  his  amazement  has  respect  not  only 
to  the  awful  danger  which  he  did  not  feel  before,  but 
to  the  turpitude  and  guilt  of  sin  to  Avhich  he  was  insen- 
sible, and  his  own  base  ingratitude  to  God  at  whose 
feet  he  now  lies  subdued  and  humbled.  It  is  in  sor- 
row for  his  sins,  as  sins  against  a  God  of  justice  and 
of  mercy,  that  the  sinner's  heart  is  said  to  be  broken, 
not  merely  softened  but  broken  in  pieces  and  reduced 
to  powder,  as  the  word  translated  contrite  really  de- 
notes. True  contrition  then  includes  sensibility  of 
conscience  and  the  tenderer  aflfections,  with  a  just 
apprehension  of  the  evil  of  sin,  not  only  as  considered 
in  its  own  nature,  but  also  as  inherent  in  the  penitent 
himself.  Upon  spiritual  brokenness  of  heart  as  thus 
explained,  I  invite  your  attention  to  a  few  remarks, 
some  of  which  have  been  implied  in  what  has  been 
already  said. 

The  first  remark  is,  that  the  broken  spirit  and  the 
contrite  heart  are  really  a  sacrifice,  a  sacrifice  to  God. 
I  recur  to  this  idea,  on  account  of  the  opinion  wliich 
extensively  prevails  among  the  hearers  of  the  gospel, 
and  particularly  those  who  are  not  thoroughly  in- 
sructed  in  the  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  that  contrition 
is  a  price  which  we  must  pay  for  our  salvation,  the 
death  of  Christ  being  either  excluded  altogether,  or 
admitted  merely  to  give  weight  and  value  to  the  sor- 


S82  SERM02;s. 

rows  of  the  penitent.  How  strange  it  is  that  one 
opinion  which  men  never  think  of  acting  on  in  com- 
mon life  should  be  maintained  so  seriously  and  with 
such  tenacity  in  spiritual  matters.  He  who  should 
undertake  to  cancel  any  civil  obligation  in  like  man- 
ner, to  discharge  his  private  debts  or  pay  the  penalty 
of  violated  laws  by  mere  regret  that  he  had  broken 
or  contracted  them,  would  be  regarded  either  as  dis- 
honest or  a  fool.  And  yet  there  are  wise  and  honest 
men,  wise  and  honest  as  to  this  world's  matters,  who 
regard  repentance  as  an  ample  compensation  for  their 
worst  transgressions,  and  who  fasten  with  avidity  on 
every  phrase  which  seems  to  favour  that  opinion. 
Such  a  phrase  is  that  before  us,  which  describes  the 
broken  spirit  as  a  sacrifice. 

Some  may  be  ready  to  inquire,  if  this  does  not 
mean  a  satisfaction  to  God's  justice,  what  else  can  it 
mean  ?  It  means,  as  we  have  seen,  a  consecration  of 
the  heart  to  God,  not  in  its  natural  obdurate  state,  but 
broken  and  contrite  ;  a  consecration  which  can  never 
go  before  the  application  of  Christ's  blood  and  the  re- 
mission of  our  sins,  but  will  invariably  follow  it. 
They  love  much  to  whom  much  is  forgiven,  not  be- 
cause forgiveness  is  the  purchase  of  their  love,  but 
because  their  love  is  the  eifect  of  their  forgiveness 
So  likewise  all  who  are  redeemed  will  offer  up  ? 
broken  heart  as  a  sacrifice,  not  because  their  broken- 
ness  of  heart  redeems  them,  but  because  whenever 
Christ  saves  a  sinner,  he  invariably  breaks  his  heart. 
The  same  almighty  grace  which  sets  him  free  from  the 
dominion  of  the  law,  sets  him  likewise  free  from  the 
obduracy  of  nature.     And  as  these  two  deliverances 


rsALM  51,  ir.  38S 

always  go  togetlicr,  there  can  be  no  assurance  of  tlie 
one  without  a  satisfactory  assurance  of  the  other. 
We  have  no  right  to  believe  that  Clirist  has  died  for 
us,  unless  we  are  ready  and  resolved  to  live  for  him. 
Let  us  maintain  our  hold  upon  both  doctrines,  and 
remembering  that  the  only  efficacious  sacrifice  for  sin 
is  tliat  of  Christ,  at  the  same  time  remember  that 
"  the  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit." 

My  second  observation  is,  that  this  is  an  offering 
which  God  docs  not  despise.  In  the  language  of  the 
text,  it  would  appear  to  be  implied  that  God  might 
well  liave  been  expected  to  despise  it.  And  is  this 
not  true  ?  Are  tliese  worthless,  wicked,  and  deceitful 
hearts  a  fit  oblation  for  God's  altar  ?  There  is  wonder 
in  tlie  Psalmist's  exclamation,  God  despises  and  re- 
jects the  costly  ofi'crings  of  princes  :  gold  and  silver, 
jjomp  and  pageantry,  he  spurns :  thou  despisest  all 
that  wealth  or  pride  can  offer  at  thy  footstool,  but  "  a 
broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not 
despise."  It  is  also  an  expression  of  his  thankfulness. 
Tlie  broken  heart  itself  is  thy  gift,  thou  alone  canst 
break  it ;  and  having  thus  bestowed  it,  thou  art 
pleased  to  accept  of  it  again  at  our  hands ;  thou  re- 
quirest  nothing  but  a  broken  contrite  heart ;  "  a 
broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not  de- 
spise." Ac  the  same  time  there  is  humble  and  rejoic- 
ing confidence.  Since  thou  art  pleased  to  ask  nothing 
but  a  broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  I  despair  no 
longer ;  only  break  my  hard  heart  more  completely 
by  the  sense  of  thy  forgiving  mercy,  and  I  ask  no 
more,  for  I  can  then  come  before  thee  with  a  broken 


384  SERMONS. 

and  a  contrite  lieart  forever,  and  "  a  broken  and  a 
contrite  heart,  O  God,  tlion  wilt  not  despise." 

In  the  third  phace,  I  remark  that  though  a  holy 
and  a  righteons  God  accepts  the  sacrifice,  ungodly 
men  despise  it.  It  is  better  to  fall  into  the  hands  of 
God  than  into  the  hands  of  man.  The  chastisements 
of  God  are  tender  mercies  to  his  people,  but  the  ten- 
der mercies  of  the  wicked  are  cruel.  The  licentious, 
proud,  and  selfish  worldling,  who  believes  that  he 
does  honour  to  God's  word  by  hearing  it,  and  whose 
religion  is  a  condescending  patronage  of  Christ  and 
his  salvation,  hates  and  scorns  a  broken  spirit  and  a 
contrite  heart  as  heartily  and  proudly  as  the  evil  one 
himself.  Let  the  humble  Christian  be  prepared  for 
the  contempt  of  those  whose  hearts  were  never 
broken,  and  amidst  "  the  proud  man's  contumely," 
let  him  lift  his  lieart  to  heaven  and  breathe  the 
Psalmist's  confident  assurance,  "  a  broken  and  a  con- 
trite heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not  despise." 

Again,  we  may  remark  that  in  the  church  itself, 
there  may  be  those  who,  while  they  wear  the  yoke  of 
Christ,  appear  impatient  of  its  pressure ;  these  are 
the  worshippers  of  manly  Christianity,  who  love  re- 
ligion in  its  fierce,  and  proud,  and  insolent  disguises, 
but  disdain  it  in  its  unadorned  simplicity  and  meek- 
ness. How  far  such  a  spirit  is  compatible  with  bro- 
kenness  of  heart  and  deep  contrition,  let  those  who 
cherish  it  determine  for  themselves  by  comparing 
their  own  feelings  and  habitual  dispositions  with  the 
language  of  the  Psalmist,  "  Tlie  sacrifices  of  God  are 
a  broken  spirit :  a  broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O 
God,  thou  wilt  not  despise." 


PSALM  51,  17.  3g5 

In  conclusion,  tliere  are  no  doubt  many  who  now 
hear  me,  that  are  j^erfectly  unconscious  of  the  slight- 
est feeling  which  coidd  be,  without  absurdity,  de- 
scribed as  a  broken  spirit  and  a  contrite  lieart.  To 
such  the  subject  is  and  must  be  unintelligible,  and 
they  are  perhaps  disposed  in  secret  to  rejoice  that  it 
is  so.  Believing  as  they  do  that  the  experience  of 
this  change  would  deprive  them  of  the  only  pleasures 
which  they  arc  now  capable  of  relishing,  they  may 
perhaps  console  thcmselv^es  by  tliinking  that  "  where 
ignorance  is  bliss,  'tis  folly  to  be  wise."  It  is  not  my 
design,  by  a  vain  reiteration,  to  attempt  to  change 
your  present  feelings  in  relation  to  this  matter.  But 
I  wish,  before  I  close,  to  guard  your  minds  if  possible 
against  a  very  natural  illusion,  with  respect  to  the 
future. 

The  unbroken  heart  is  always  loth  to  thiid-c  that 
it  can  ever  be  subdued.  As  it  invariably  glories  in 
its  strength,  it  cannot  bear  the  thought  of  losing  it. 
Some  in  the  madness  of  their  pride  resolve  that  they 
will  rather  lose  eternal  life,  than  gain  it  by  humiliat- 
ing weaknesses.  Others,  unwilling  to  proceed  so  far, 
merely  dismiss  the  subject  from  their  thoughts,  while 
a  third  class  persuade  themselves  that  though  they 
must  repent  and  be  converted,  they  may  certainly  do 
this  without  a  loss  of  native  dignity,  or  the  indulgence 
of  unmanly  weakness.  And  accordingly  their  pur- 
pose is  to  keep  a  good  heart  even  in  repenting,  and  to 
quit  themselves  like  men  in  the  salvation  of  their 
souls.  The  eye  of  my  imagination  rests  upon  one 
who  would  rather  be  detected  in  a  ciime,  than  in  the 
shedding  of  a  tear  for  crimes  already  perpetrated ; 
VOL.  n. — IT 


386  SERMONS. 

one  who  would  rather  break  than  bend;  one  who 
would  rather  be  broken  by  God's  wrath  than  by  his 
mercy  ;  one,  in  whose  nature  this  satanic  pride  is  so 
profoundly  fixed,  that  he  is  utterly  unable  to  conceive 
of  it  as  possible  that  his  heart  ever  can  be  broken 
either  by  misfortune  or  repentance. 

The  scene  is  changed,  and  I  behold  that  same 
man  still  a  hearer  of  the  gospd,  but  his  countenance 
is  altered.  He  still  maintains  a  posture  of  resistance, 
but  his  eye  is  restless  and  his  brow  contracted,  and  I 
read  in  his  vain  efforts  to  suj)press  and  hide  his  feel- 
ings, that  the  enemy  he  once  despised  has  found  his 
way  into  the  fortress  of  his  heart.  There  is  commo- 
tion there.  There  is  a  deadly  struggle  between  flesh 
and  spirit.  With  desperate  strength  the  strong  man 
guards  his  palace,  but  a  stronger  than  he  is  there. 
He  would  rather  die  than  yield  to  his  convictions. 
His  soul  chooses  strangling  rather  than  life.  He  re- 
flects with  horror  on  the  scorn  and  contumely  which 
await  his  fall,  and  in  the  anguish  of  that  fear,  he 
summons  every  motive  and  musters  all  his  strength 
to  hold  united  his  already  bursting  heart ;  but  in  the 
crisis  of  his  last  convulsive  effort  it  is  broken,  it  is 
broken.  The  most  incredible  of  all  impossibilities  is 
realized.  The  stony  heart  is  broken,  and  the  man 
who  feared  and  hated  it  in  prospect,  now  rejoices  in 
it.  The  tears  which  once  he  would  rather  die  than 
shed,  flow  freely.  The  man  is  willing  in  the  day  of 
God's  power,  and  as  he  looks  up  at  the  cross  beneath 
which  his  obdurate  heart  was  broken,  and  beholds  the 
bleeding  sacrifice  by  which  his  life  was  purchased,  he 
throws  as  it  were  the  bruised  fras-ments  of  his  heart 


PSALM  51,  17.  QQtJ 

at  tlie  Redeemer's  feet,  beneath  the  droppin<5s  of  his 
blood,  and  says  "  lie  there  forever,"  while  from  every 
wound  of  him  who  hangs  upon  the  cross  a  voice  re- 
sponds :  "  Tlie  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit : 
a  broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not 
despise." 

Of  such,  some  no  doubt  are  saved,  saved  perhaps 
as  by  fire.  Would  to  God,  that  this  might  be  the  end 
of  all  who  now  despise  the  gospel,  and  resolve  that 
no  misfortune,  and  no  spiritual  influence  shall  ever 
break  their  liearts.  "Well  might  the  contrite  and  the 
broken-hearted  Christian  bear  "  the  proud  man's  con- 
tumely "  and  the  scofier's  sneer,  if  by  such  endurance 
he  could  purchase  tlie  consolatory  hope  that  his  de- 
spisers  should  be  one  day  broken-hearted  like  himself. 
But,  alas,  with  Scripture  and  with  history  before  us, 
where  shall  we  take  refuge  from  the  fear,  that  to  many 
who  now  make  a  mock  of  sin  and  of  repentance,  and 
who  trainjjle  on  the  broken  heart,  the  last  words  of 
the  Saviour,  as  he  points  to  his  despised  ones  will  be, 
"  Behold,  ye  despisers,  and  wonder  and  perish !  " 

It  is  matter  of  thankfulness  that  we  who  preach 
the  gos])el,  are  not  authorized  to  read  the  future  his- 
tory of  those  who  now  reject  salvation,  and  that  God 
has  invested  this  distressing  subject  with  a  shroud  of 
intermingled  hope  and  fear.  But  notwithstanding 
this  compassionate  reserve,  it  may  be  said  without 
presumption,  that  among  those  who  arc  now  disposed 
to  laugh  at  the  idea  of  a  broken  heart,  there  are  somo 
who,  though  they  never  shall  exfcrience  the  power  of 
subduing  grace,  shall  yet  know  by  experience  what 
it  is  to  be  heart-broken.     Mcthinks  I  see  one  of  this 


388  SIBMONS. 

class  also,  at  another  time,  and  in  another  place.  1 
see  him  surronnded  by  the  comforts,  and  the  honours, 
and  the  pleasures  of  the  world.  I  see  him  still  a  cold, 
fastidious  hearer  of  the  gospel.  I  see  him  regarding 
with  a  proud  contempt  the  penitent  contrition  of  his 
fellow-sinner.  I  see  him  laugh  in  scorn  at  the  idea  of 
his  own  ]ieart  being  broken.  I  see  him  arm  himself 
with  stoical  philosophy,  with  heathen  fortitude,  with 
hellish  pride.  But  while  I  see  him  watchful  upon 
one  side,  I  behold  his  enemy  approaching  on  another. 
"While  he  surrounds  the  garden  of  his  happiness  with 
walls  or  hedges  to  repel  wild  beasts,  I  see  tlie  flower 
on  his  favourite  vine  begin  to  droop,  and  sicken  till 
it  drops  into  the  earth  a  withered  weed.  I  see  the 
vine  itself  decaying  in  its  branches  and  its  stock,  until 
the  root  alone  is  left.  I  see  the  soul  of  the  proud  sin- 
ner touched  with  exquisite  exactness  in  its  most  un- 
guarded and  most  vulnerable  points.  I  see  the 
appetite  for  earthly  pleasm-e  "sicken  and  so  die," 
with  nothing  better  to  succeed  it.  I  see  the  man  as 
he  looks  back  upon  the  wilderness  and  forward  to  the 
ocean,  as  he  turns  with  a  sore  conscience  from  the 
trackless  sands,  gaze  with  anxious  apprehension  on 
the  trackless  waters.  "  His  strength  is  hungerbitten," 
and  his  courage  spent.  Is  this  the  man  who  braved 
misfortune,  and  defied  conviction  ?  Is  it  he  who 
laughed  at  the  idea  of  a  broken  heart,  and  vowed  that 
his  heart  never  could  be  broken?  Is  it  he  who  even 
now  has  only  strength  enough  to  hide,  and  that  at 
the  expense  of  most  excruciating  torments,  the  ap- 
proaching fracture  of  his  own  proud  spirit,  for  a  few 
more  days  of  unimaginable  anguish,  till  in  the  vei7 


PSALM  51,  17.  3S9 

article  of  death,  his  heart  and  flesh  give  -way  to- 
gether, and  he  "who  boasted  of  a  whole  heart  while  he 
lived,  dies  of  a  broken  heart  at  last.  All,  my  hearers, 
you  may  think  it  a  mere  fiction  of  romance  that  men 
should  die  of  broken  hearts.  But  when  the  records  of 
God's  righteous  retributions  are  unfolded,  some  of  us 
may  see  that  this  and  that  man  whose  decease  was  here 
ascribed  to  accident  or  bodily  disease,  were  the  vic- 
tims of  an  obstinate,  unbending  spirit,  and  of  a 
wounded,  ulcerated  conscience,  were  consumed  by 
secret  eflbrts  to  suppress  conviction,  and  at  last,  after 
all  their  proud  derision  and  bravado,  died  of  broken 
hearts.  Is  it  then  the  case,  you  may  be  ready  to  in- 
quire, that  they  who  pass  through  life,  without  ex- 
perience of  sorrow,  and  devoid  of  sensibility  ;  who 
steep  themselves  in  selfish  and  ignoble  pleasures,  till 
their  souls  are  callous  ;  is  it  true  that  tliese  alone  arc 
to  escape  the  sad  experience  of  a  broken  heart  ? 

My  hearers,  there  arc  two  very  common  eiTors  in 
relation  to  the  future  state  of  those  who  die  impcni 
tent.  The  one  is  the  idea,  that  because  the  tree  must  lie 
just  as  it  falls,  because  lie  who  is  filthy  must  be  filthy 
still ;  men  can  deprive  themselves  in  some  degree  of 
that  susceptibility  of  pain  which  is  essential  to  tho 
misery  of  hell.  Hence  there  have  been  men  who,  as 
their  death  approached,  chose  to  stupefy  their  minds 
with  intoxicating  liquors,  partly  no  doubt  for  the 
purpose  of  excluding  all  reflection  on  the  future  ; 
partly  from  unbelief  of  any  future  state,  but  in  many 
cases,  I  have  no  doubt  also,  in  the  hope  that  their 
£.tupefied  and  brutal  apathy  would  still  continue  in  the 
other  world.     Think  of  tliis  vain  attempt  to  quench 


390  SERMONS. 

tlie  flames  of  Tophet  with  intoxicating  liqnors,  or 
■with  any  otlier  stupefying  dnig,  and  then  imagine,  if 
you  can,  the  awaking  of  that  spirit  after  death.  The 
only  gift  of  God  to  the  lost  sinner  is  the  gift  of  sensi- 
bility unknown  before  :  a  gift  which  shall  overwhelm 
with  shrinking  shame,  the  man,  the  woman,  to  whom 
shame  is  now  a  stranger ;  agitate  with  terror  those 
who  now  are  brave,  and  sting  with  keen  remorse  the 
consciences  of  those  whose  hearts  are  never  visited  in 
this  life  by  the  dread  of  wrath,  or  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  guilt.  Whatever  other  changes  may  await  us, 
be  assured,  my  hearers,  that  the  day  is  coming  when 
the  most  unfeeling  shall  be  made  to  feel. 


XXI. 

James  1,  2-8. — My  brethren,  count  it  all  joy  when  ye  fall  into 
divers  temptations ;  knowing  this,  that  the  trying  of  your  faith  work- 
cth  patience.  But  let  patience  have  her  perfect  work,  that  ye  may 
be  perfect  and  entire,  wanting  nothing.  If  any  of  you  Ir.ck  wisdom, 
let  him  ask  of  God,  that  givetli  to  all  men  liberally,  and  upbraidcth 
not;  and  it  shirll  be  given  him.  But  let  him  ask  in  faith,  nothing 
wavering:  for  he  that  wavercth  is  like  a  wave  of  the  sea  driven  with 
the  wind  and  tossed.  For  let  not  that  man  think  that  he  sliall  receive 
any  thing  of  the  Lord.  A  double-minded  man  is  unstable  in  all  his 
ways. 

The  questions  wliicli  have  been  raised  in  reference 
to  the  author  of  this  epistle,  however  interesting  thej 
may  be  to  tlie  historical  critic,  are  of  very  little  exc- 
getical  importance.  "Whether  it  be  the  Avork  of  James 
the  son  of  Zebcdee,  as  the  old  Syriac  translators,  and 
perhaps  some  others  thonglit,  or  of  James  the  sou  of 
Alphens,  which  has  been  the  prevalent  opinion  in  all 
ages  of  the  church,  or  James  the  brother  of  the  Lord, 
not  :i  member  of  the  apostolic  body,  but  the  bishop 
or  pastor  of  the  church  at  Jerusalem,  of  whom  con- 
temporary history  relates  that  he  was  called  the  Just 
or  Righteous,  and  whose  death,  at  the  hands  of  the 
infuriated  Zealots,  is  described  by  the  same  author  as 
an  immediate  cause  or  occasion  of  the  Fall  of  Jeru- 


392  SERMONS. 

salem  ;  tliese  are  alternative  hypotheses,  our  choice  of 
which  cannot  materially  affect  our  view  of  the  design 
and  meaning  of  the  book  itself. 

The  doubts  respecting  its  canonical  authority 
among  the  ancients,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  sprang  from  its  having  been  addressed 
to  Jews  or  Jewish  Christians,  and  not  made  known 
to  the  Gentile  churches  until  after  some  time  had 
elapsed.  The  like  doubts,  entertained  by  Luther  and 
some  other  modern  writers,  have  been  founded  on  a 
supposed  contrariety  between  the  teachings  of  James 
and  Paul,  as  to  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion. The  little  currency  which  this  opinion  has  ob- 
tained among  believing  readers  and  interpreters  shows 
that  its  supposed  ground  is  imaginary,  and  that  there 
is  no  reason  even  for  assuming  two  divergent  types  of 
Christian  doctrine,  an  ingenious  figment  which  has 
been  carried  to  extremes  by  certain  German  theo- 
logians of  our  own  day.  A  key  to  all  the  difficulties 
of  the  case  is  furnished  by  the  simple  supposition  that 
the  epistle  presupposes  what  is  taught  in  other  parts 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  is  intended,  not  to  com- 
municate the  fundamental  truths  of  Christianity,  but 
to  correct  abuses  of  them  which  had  already  shown 
themselves,  perhaps  especially  in  certain  portions  of 
the  church  and  under  certain  circumstances,  amons 
which  one  was  probably  the  influence  of  persecution, 
and  the  peculiar  trials  and  temptations  which  it 
brought  along  with  it,  and  in  which  the  apostle  here 
exhorts  his  readers  to  rejoice,  just  as  Paul,  in  still 
more  general  terms,  exhorts  "  us  to  rejoice  always." 

This  positive  injunction  of  the  Christian  ethics 


I 


JAMES  1,  2-8.  393 

may  seem  too  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  be  obeyed. 
And  even  if  the  natural  repugnance  to  sufferino- 
can  be  so  far  vanquished  as  to  make  distress  itself  a 
subject  and  occasion  of  rejoicing,  the  moral  sense  still 
shrinks  from  what  is  here  commanded,  to  rejoice  in 
temptation.  The  paradox  is  not  to  be  removed  by 
violently  changing  the  established  meaning  of  the 
word,  which  never  means  affliction  simply,  but  in 
every  case  conveys  the  idea  of  a  moral  trial,  or  a  test 
of  character.  The  petition  whicli  our  Lord  himself 
]3rescribes,  "  Lead  us  not  into  temptation,"  cannot  be 
a  mere  deprecation  of  adversity,  as  something  painful. 
Had  not  popuhar  usage  lowered  the  meaning  of  our 
own  word  "  trial  "  as  applied  to  providential  changes, 
so  that  it  now  expresses  little  more  than  pain  or  pri- 
vation, it  would  correspond  exactly  to  the  Greek 
term  here  used,  and  applied  to  sufferings  or  afflictions, 
not  as  such,  or  as  mere  chastisements,  or  means  of 
grace,  but  as  tests  or  touchstones  of  the  sufferer's  dis- 
positions and  affections,  of  his  faith,  and  patience, 
and  obedience,  to  which  the  term  is  as  legitimately 
applicable  as  it  is  to  those  direct  solicitations  to  evil 
which  are  commonly  denoted  by  the  word  "  tempta- 
tion." 

But  even  this  word  temptation  strictly  denotes 
trial,  i.  e.^  moral  trial,  trial  of  character,  and  merely 
comprehends  within  it  that  specific  mode  of  trial 
which  consists  in  direct  attempts  to  make  men  sin, 
by  exciting  their  sinful  dispositions,  setting  before 
them  the  unlawful  object,  and  aflurding  them  the 
means  and  opportunity  of  actual  transgi'cssion.  All 
this,  I  say,  which  is  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the  word 

VUI.    11.  — 11* 


394  SERMONS. 

"  temptation,"  is  but  one  form — tliongli  undoubtedly 
the  worst  form — of  that  whole  testing  process  wliicli  the 
term  in  Greek  as  well  as  English  primarily  signifies. 
The  question  whether  it  is  here  used  in  its  narrower 
or  wider  sense  may  be  determined  by  the  context, 
where  the  fruit  of  sanctified  temptation  is  described 
as  patience,  patient  endurance.  But  the  fruit  and 
remedy  of  temptation  in  the  ordinary  sense  is  not  the 
habit  of  endurance  but  of  strong  resistance.  To  be 
patient  under  the  suggestions  of  the  devil,  the  seduc- 
tions of  the  world,  and  the  corruptions  of  our  own 
heart,  would  imply  acquiescence,  not  to  say  compla- 
cency in  evil.  A  temptation,  to  which  patience  is 
the  proper  antidote,  must  be  specifically  a  temptation 
to  impatience,  insubordination,  a  rebellious  and  re- 
pining temper,  and  these  are  just  the  sinful  disposi- 
tions and  aifections  to  which  we  are  tempted  by  a 
state  of  suflfering.  We  must  therefore  understand 
the  words  as  having  reference  to  those  providential 
trials  of  men's  faith  and  patience  in  which  they  are 
rather  passive  than  active,  and  under  which  their  ap- 
propriate duty  is  not  so  much  resistance  as  submis- 
sion. But  even  these  trials  and  temptations  are  not 
to  be  sought  for  or  solicited.  It  is  not  in  voluntary, 
wilful  subjection  to  them  through  our  own  fault,  or 
in  the  indulgence  of  our  own  perverse  ambition  to  be 
martjH's  or  confessors,  that  we  are  encouraged  or  com- 
manded to  rejoice,  but  when  we  "  fall  into  "  them  or 
among  them,  so  as  to  be  quite  encompassed  and  en- 
veloped by  them,  as  the  traveller  from  Jerusalem  to 
Jericho,  in  the  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan,  "  fell 
among"  thieves  or  robbers  ;    the  original  expression 


JAMES  1,  2-8.  395 

being  just  the  same  in  cither  case,  and  in  the  only 
other  phice  where  it  occurs,  (Acts  27,  41,)  although 
api>lied  to  a  kind  of  trial  altogether  different,  the 
nmning  of  a  ship  aground,  it  still  suggests  the  same 
idea  of  unstudied,  unintentional,  unforeseen  emergen- 
cies, and  therefore  makes  it  still  more  certain  that  the 
trials  in  which  we  are  commanded  to  rejoice  are  not 
those  into  which  we  presumptuously  rush,  but  those 
into  which  we  unintentionally  fall,  and  which,  for 
that  very  reason,  are  better  suited  to  make  proof  of 
our  obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  and  of  our  trust  in 
his  power  and  willingness  to  keep  us.  The  dilhculty 
of  complying  with  this  general  injunction  may  appear 
to  bo  enhanced  by  the  variety  of  outward  forms  and 
circumstances  under  wliicli  the  work  of  providential 
trial  may  be  carried  on,  including  all  the  numberless 
and  nameless  "  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to." 

IIow  can  all  these  be  reduced  to  one  description, 
or  provided  for  by  one  prescription  ?  Though  it  may 
be  rational  and  right,  and  therefore  must  be  pos- 
sible, if  not  always  easy,  to  rejoice  in  one  variety  of 
such  temptations,  it  does  not  follow  necessarily  that 
it  is  possible  or  right  in  all.  But  this  objection  or 
misgiving  as  to  the  extent  of  the  apostle's  requisition, 
is  anticipated  and  precluded  by  himself  in  the  express 
use  of  the  epithet  "  divers,"  manifold,  multiform,  di- 
versified, the  sensible  quality  originally  signilied  be- 
ing that  of  variety  in  colours,  particoloured,  piebald, 
motley,  and  theretbre  well  adapted,  by  a  natural  as- 
sociation, to  express  in  a  lively  manner  the  idea  of 
diversity  in  general,  as  if  he  had  said — however  varied 
the  complexion  of  the  trials  into  which  you  fall,  or  by 


396  SERMCJNS. 

whicli  you  are  encompassed,  I  tell  you  still  to  "  count 
it  joy  "  and  "  all  joy,"  not  by  a  figure  of  speech  or 
paradoxical  abuse  of  language;  so  that,  according  to 
tlie  famous  saying  of  a  great  diplomatist,  it  serves  to 
conceal  thought  rather  than  express  it,  saying  one 
thing  and  meaning  another  ;  not  in  a  limited  degree, 
as  implying  that  a  little  joy  may  possibly  be  squeezed 
out  of  the  heart  surcharged  with  grief ;  not  with  a 
stoical  apathy,  affecting  to  confound  or  identify  pain 
and  pleasure,  joy  and  sorrow  ;  but  in  the  true  sense, 
and  the  full  sense,  and  the  Christian  sense  of  the  ex- 
pression, let  us  count  our  providential  trials  "  all  jo}^," 
nothing  but  joy,  as  Paul  tells  the  Ephesians,  Christ 
has  abounded  towards  us  "  in  all  wisdom  and  pru- 
dence ;  "  and  exhorts  them  to  walk  worthy  of  their 
vocation  "  with  all  lowliness  and  meekness,"  (Eph.  1, 
8  ;  4,  2,)  all  kinds  and  all  degrees  of  wisdom  in  the 
one  case,  and  of  meekness  in  the  other.  So  here,  it 
is  not  the  mere  name,  or  the  mere  pretence,  or  some 
infinitesimal  degree  of  joy,  that  believers  under  trial 
are  to  exercise,  but  "  all  joy  "  as  opposed  to  none,  and 
to  too  little,  and  to  every  kind  of  counterfeit.  So  far 
from  grieving  or  repining  when  you  fall  into  divers 
trials,  "  count  it  all  joy."  But  as  we  know,  both  from 
Scripture  and  experience,  that  "  no  chastening  /"or 
the  present  seemeth  to  be  joyous,  but  grievous,  and 
that  afterward  {varepov)  it  yield eth  the  peaceable  fruit 
of  righteousness  to  them  which  are  exercised  thereby," 
(Heb.  12,  11,)  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  joy  here  required  is  not  a  joy  to  be  experienced 
in  the  very  article  or  stress  of  the  temptation,  but 
a  joy  to  be  engendered  by  a,  believing,  gi'ateful  re 


J^OIES  1,  2-8.  39^^ 

trospection  of  the  trial  after  it  is  past,  or  at  least,  after 
the  first  shock  is  over,  and  the  soul  is  able  to  reflect 
upon  it.  This  is  jjerfectlj  consistent  with  the  form 
of  cx2)ression  {orav  TrepLTria-Tjre)  M-hich  might  even  be 
translated  to  mean  "  when  "  or  "  after,"  "  ye  have 
fallen  into  divers  trials,"  so  as,  at  least,  to  sug- 
gest the  idea,  that  this  is  not  a  joy  to  be  indulged  in 
l)rospeet  of  the  trial  or  temptation,  which  might  too 
easily  degenerate  into  a  proud,  presumptuous,  self- 
confident  defiance,  or  even  a  fanatical  solicitation  of 
such  trials,  wliicli  is  sometliing  very  different  from 
the  humble,  grateful  joy  of  having  been  subjected  to 
them  for  a  wise  and  gracious  purpose,  and  brought 
through  them,  and  then  out  of  them  in  safety. 

This  precise  determination  of  tlic  time  at  wliicli  tlie 
joy  is  to  be  exercised,  as  not  the  time  of  actual  en- 
durance, much  less  that  of  previous  expectation,  but 
rather  that  of  subsequent  reflection — I  mean  subse- 
quent, if  not  to  tlie  whole  trial,  yet  at  least  to  its 
inception — this,  I  say,  may  throw  some  light  on  two 
points  which  have  been  already  mentioned,  Init  per- 
haps not  yet  made  wholly  clear.  The  first  is  the 
paradoxical  aspect  of  the  exhortation  to  rejoice  in 
that  which  necessarily  involves  pain  and  suffering. 
The  paradox,  to  say  the  least,  may  seem  less  startling 
if  we  understand  the  text  as  calling  upon  men  to  re- 
joice, not  that  they  are  suflering,  or  while  they  suffer, 
although  even  this  does  not  transcend  the  limits  of 
experience,  as  we  Icnow  from  the  triumphant  jr>y  of 
martyrs  at  the  stake,  and  of  Tuany  a  lowlier  believer 
on  his  deathbed,  but  that  they  have  suffered,  that  it 
has  pleased  God,  without  their  own  concurrence,  to 


39S  SEEMOJfS. 

afford  them  tlie  occasion  of  attesting  their  fidelity, 
and  patience,  and  snhmission  to  liis  wilL  Snch  joy, 
h\  the  recollection  of  past  trials,  has  so  many  analogies 
in  general  experience,  that  it  cannot  even  be  called 
"  paradoxical  "  withont  injnstice. 

The  other  ])oint  on  which  the  sSme  consideration 
may  throw  some  light,  is  the  choice  of  an  expression 
which,  althongh  it  primarily  signifies  no  more  than 
moral  trial  or  a  test  of  character,  in  general  usage 
does  undoubtedly  denote  a  positive  solicitation  to  do 
wrong.  For  even  in  this  worst  sense  of  temj)tation, 
it  may  be  a  subject  of  rejoicing,  not  beforehand,  no, 
nor  in  the  very  crisis  of  the  spiritual  conflict ;  but 
when  that  is  past,  and  when  the  soul,  unconscious  of 
its  danger  till  it  could  no  longer  be  avoided,  looks 
back  upon  the  fearful  risk  from  wiiich  it  has  escaped, 
not  merely  with  gratitude  for  its  deliverance,  but 
with  unaflected  joy  that  there  was  such  a  risk  to  be 
delivei'ed  from,  because  it  has  now  served  to  magnify 
God's  grace,  and  at  the  same  time  to  attest  its  own 
fidelity.  Just  as  the  soldier,  who  would  have  been 
guilty  of  the  grossest  rashness  and  the  most  unpardon- 
able violation  of  his  orders,  if  he  had  deliberately 
thrown  himself  into  the  way  of  a  superior  enemy, 
may — when  unexpectedly  surrounded  and  attacked, 
he  has  heroically  cut  his  way  through — rejoice,  not 
only  in  his  safety,  but  in  the  very  danger  which 
comjDelled  him  to  achieve  it. 

But  the  joy  experienced  in  the  case  before  us  is 
not  merely  retrospective,  but  prospective  also.  It  is 
not  an  ignorant  or  blind  joy,  but  is  founded  in  knowl- 
edge, knowledge  not  only  of  the  principles  on  which 


JAMES  1,  2-8.  399 

men  ought  to  act,  but  of  tlie  consequences  which  may 
he  expected  from  a  certain  course  of  action  or  of  snfier- 
ing ;  for  as  Ave  have  ah-eady  seen,  it  is  of  passive,  rarlier 
than  of  active  or  positive  obedience,  that  James  is 
speaking.  The  trials  or  temptations  of  the  Christian 
are  the  test  or  touchstone  of  his  faith,  both  in  the 
strict  and  comprehensive  sense.  They  put  to  tlie 
proof  his  trust  in  God,  his  belief  of  what  God  says,  of 
what  he  promises.  But  in  so  doing,  they  afford  the 
surest  test  of  his  religion,  of  his  whole  religions  char- 
acter. Specific  trust  in  God's  veracity  and  faithful- 
ness is  not  and  cannot  be  an  independent,  insulated 
quality,  or  act,  or  habit.  It  must  have  its  causes 
and  effects  homogeneous  to  itself  in  the  man's  creed, 
in  his  heart,  in  his  hfe.  Among  these  is  a  definite 
reliance  on  God's  mercy,  not  as  a  mere  attribute  of 
the  divine  nature,  but  as  offered  and  exercised  in  a 
specific  form,  the  only  form  in  which  it  can  be  offered 
or  received  by  sinners.  The  text  says  nothing  ex- 
pressly of  faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  but  every 
believer  in  this  Saviour  who  peruses  the  epistle,  feels 
that  it  is  presupposed,  assumed,  or  taken  for  granted, 
so  that  the  contracted  form  of  speech  here  used,  con- 
veys to  such  a  reader  all  that  is  expressed  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  second  chapter,  where  the  one  word 
"  faith  "  is  amplified  into  the  "  faith  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Glorious,"  or  "  the  Lord  of  Glory."  What 
is  there  said  explicitly,  is  here  said  by  necessary  im- 
plication. He  who  could  use  the  longer  fonn,  could 
not  use  the  shorter  without  meaning  to  suggest  more 
than  he  says.  There  is  therefore  no  violence  what- 
ever done  to  the  apostle's  language,  when  wc  under- 


400  SERMONS, 

stand  liim  to  deserioe  temptation  as  a  test  of  sincere 
belief  in  Clirist  as  "  tlie  only  name  given  under 
heaven  among  men  Avlicreby  ^ve  must  be  saved" 
from  sin  as  well  as  punishment,  and  not  of  mere  re- 
liance on  the  power  and  willingness  of  God  to  deliver 
or  preserve  from  suffering.  In  both  these  senses,  or 
in  both  these  applications  and  extensions  of  the  term, 
faith  is  neces-sarilj  -included  in  the  religious  character, 
of  which  a  test  is  furnished  by  providential  trials  or 
temptations. 

But  it  does  not  merely  furnish  present  evidence 
of  faitli.  It  produces  a  permanent  effect  upon  the 
character.  It  generates  a  habit — that  of  patient  en- 
durance, that  of  steadfast  perseverance  in  the  way  of 
God's  commandments.  For  of  patience,  as  of  faith, 
it  may  be  said  that  it  cannot  stand  alone,  it  cannot 
exist  independently  of  other  virtues,  other"  graces, 
other  traits  of  Christian  character.  The  principle  of 
active  and  passive  obedience  is  the  same.  He  who 
will  not  do  God's  will  cannot  endure  it  in  a  Christian 
spirit.  He  can  only  endure  it  in  the  way  of  punisli- 
ment.  Evangelical  patience  presupposes,  includes, 
or  carries  with  it  evangelical  obedience  or  activity. 
It  therefore  comprehends  a  very  large  part  of  experi- 
mental and  practical  rehgion,  and  to  say  that  it  is 
fostered  and  matured  by  trial,  is  to  say  that  trial  or 
temptation,  in  the  sense  here  put  upon  the  term,  is  an 
important  means  of  grace,  of  spiritual  growth,  and  in- 
stead of  being  angrily  complained  of  or  sullenly  repined 
at  as  a  hardship  or  a  cnielty,  ought  not  indeed  to  be 
desired  or  courted  any  more  than  medicines,  especially 
when  composed  of  poisons,  should  be  used  as  ordinary 


JAMES  1,  2-8.  401 

food ;  but  -wlien  administered,  without  our  agency  or 
even  option,  by  tlie  Great  Physician,  slioiild  be  thank- 
fully submitted  to,  and  afterwards  rejoiced  in,  as  a 
potent  agency  of  God's  appointment  which  produces 
great  eifects,  not  by  a  sudden  or  immediate  change, 
but  as  the  original  expression  seems  to  mean,  by  a 
gradual  and  long-continued  alterative  process ;  for  the 
trial  of  our  faith  "  worketh  out,"  elaborates,  and  as  it 
were  laboriously  cultivates  a  habit  of  persistent  and 
unwavering  obedience  and  submission  to  the  will  of 
God,  both  in  the  way  of  doing  and  suiiering. 

That  the  patience  thus  commended  is  not  an  inert 
and  sluggish  principle,  much  less  a  mere  condition  of 
repose,  but  something  active  in  itself  and  tending  to 
activity  in  others,  is  evident  enough  from  the  apostle's 
exhortation,  not  to  hinder  it  or  check  it  in  its  opera- 
tion, but  to  give  it  free  scope,  let  it  have  its  perfect 
work  or  full  effect.  Could  this  be  said  of  mere  in- 
ertia, or  even  patient  nonresistance  ?  Is  it  not  im- 
plied, or  rather  is  it  not  expressly  said  that  this  divine 
vTTOfiovy],  this  principle  and  habit  of  patient  continu- 
ance in  doing  and  suffering  the  will  of  God,  is  not  a 
mere  superfluous  embellishment  of  Christian  character, 
a  work  of  supererogation  added  to  its  necessary  el- 
ements by  way  of  doing  more  than  man  needs  or  than 
God  requires,  but  itself  an  element  that  cannot  be 
dispensed  with,  and  without  which  neither  suflerers 
nor  actors  in  God's  service  can  be  '•  perfect  and  en- 
tire, wanting  nothing."  How  many,  in  compounding 
their  ideal  of  a  perfect  Christian  character,  forget  to 
put  in  patience,  and  how  many,  who  in  theory  ac- 
knowledge its  necessity,  refuse  to  let  it  "  have  its 
perfect  work  "  in  their  experience  and  practice  ! 


402  SERMONS. 

All  this  affords  abimdant  room  for  wise  discrim« 
ination  and  a  sound  discretion.  It  is  evidently  not  a 
matter  %Yliich  can  be  disposed  of  or  conducted  to  a 
safe  and  happy  issue  by  mere  audacity  or  force  of 
will,  by  cutting  knots  which  ought  to  be  untied,  or 
by  a  reckless  disregard  of  delicate  distinctions  and 
perplexing  questions  which  arise  from  the  very  nature 
both  of  God  and  man,  and  from  their  mutual  rela- 
tions, and  which  can  neither  solve  themelves,  nor  be 
solved  by  any  intellectual  force  short  of  wisdom  in 
the  highest  sense ;  not  mere  knowledge,  not  even  gen- 
uine and  solid  knowledge,  much  less  the  capacity  of 
barren  speculation,  but  wisdom  in  the  noble  sense  at- 
tached to  it  even  by  profane  philosophers,  intellectual 
powers  and  resources  under  the  control  of  moral  prin- 
ciple, and  faithfully  applied  to  moral  uses  ;  a  wisdom 
shown  in  the  selection  of  the  highest  ends,  and  in  the 
application  of  the  most  effective  means  to  gain  them. 
This  wisdom,  the  idea  of  which  was  familiar  to  the 
wisest  of  the  heathen,  has  been  realized  only  in  the 
school  of  revelation.  And  woe  to  him  who  undertakes, 
without  it,  to  solve  the  intricate  and  fearful  problem 
of  man's  character  and  destiny  !  Tliis  can  be  done 
successfully,  and  even  safely,  only  by  the  wise  man, 
and  in  the  actual  use  and  exercise  of  real  wisdom. 
He  who  attempts  it  otherwise  can  only  be  regarded 
as  a  madman  throwing  about  firebrands,  arrows,  and 
death,  and  saying.  Am  I  not  in  sport  ?  This  is  no 
arbitrary  or  unmeaning  requisition,  for  unless  we 
abandon  the  very  definition  and  idea  of  true  wisdom 
as  chimerical,  we  cannot  possibly  conceive  of  any 
higher  or  more  necessary  use  to  which  its  possessors 


JAMES  1    2-8.  ^8 

can  apply  it,  or  for  wliicli  those  who  have  it  not  are 
bonnd  to  seek  it. 

But  how,  or  where  ?  they  may  he  reach-  to  cleinand. 
In  what  quarter,  or  by  what  means  is  this  transcend- 
ent, superhuman  wisdom,  to  he  made  avaihihle  for 
those  who  need  it  ?  If  no  exertion  of  man's  unas- 
sisted reason,  no  reach  of  speculation,  no  variety  of 
knowledge,  no  extent  of  observation,  no  depth  of  ex- 
perience, can  supply  this  want  even  to  the  wisest, 
what  shall  he  do  who  lays  claim  to  so  much  dignit}', 
but  feels  himself  to  be  deficient  in  this  most  essen- 
tial point?  My  brethren,  whoever  does  feel  this  de- 
ficiency, whoever  in  his  own  conviction  docs  lack 
wisdom,  and  does  really  desire  to  have  it,  is  the  very 
man  who  has  no  right  or  reason  to  despair  of  it — the 
very  one  for  whom  this  scripture  makes  express  pro- 
vision— first,  by  pointing  out  the  only  source  from 
which  his  want  can  be  supplied,  and  then  by  assuring 
him  that  he  may  confidently  draw  upon  it.  "  If  any 
of  you  lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God."  The  "  if" 
is  not  expressive  of  a  doubt,  but  presupposes  an  un- 
questionable fact,  or  rather  the  doubt  which  it  does 
seem  to  express  relates  not  to  the  fact  itself,  but  to 
the  sense  of  it — not  to  the  actual  necessity  and  ab- 
sence of  true  wisdom  in  the  case  of  every  fallen  man, 
of  every  sinner  to  be  saved,  for  this  is  certain  and 
notorious,  attested  both  by  revelation  and  experience, 
but  to  the  consciousness  of  this  deficiency,  the  want 
of  which  is  part  and  parcel  of  our  native  blindness; 
nothing  but  wisdom  can  reveal  our  folly  We  do  not 
even  feel  our  mental  maladies  until  the  healing  pro- 
cess is  begun,  in  strict  accordance  with  the  wisest 


404  SERMONS. 

saying  of  the  wisest  of  tlie  anciei  t  Greeks,  that  lie 
knew  nothing  certainly,  except  that  he  knew  nothing. 
This  epigrammatic  maxim  is  the  shell  or  wrapper  of 
a  very  profound  truth,  to  have  discovered  which  is 
the  highest  honour  of  the  man  who  uttered  it — a 
truth,  however,  which  to  him  and  to  the  wisest  of  his 
followers  was  a  mere  negation,  one  of  sweeping  mag- 
nitude and  awful  import,  but  a  negation  still ;  the 
positive  correlative  of  which  was,  what  "  the  world 
by  wisdom  "  was  for  ages  striving  after  without  ever 
grasping,  till  at  length  God  pitied  them ;  and  seeing 
that  the  world,  with  all  its  wisdom,  knew  not  God, 
was  pleased  to  save  them  that  believe  by  the  foolish- 
ness of  preaching, — by  the  promulgation  of  a  new 
philosophy  which  seemed  mere  folly  to  the  wise  men 
of  the  world,  as  it  reduced  their  wisdom  to  the  simple 
and  mostunphilosophical  acknowledgment  of  Socrates, 
and  made  the  conscious  lack  of  wisdom  as  to  spiritual 
matters  indispensable  as  a  condition  of  reception  into 
its  school  among  its  disciples  ;  and  to  those  who  felt 
it,  and  confessed  it,  simply  saying,  "  If  any  of  you 
lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God." 

My  hearers,  familiar,  elementary,  and  almost  triti- 
cal  as  this  may  seem  to  our  eyes,  bleared  and  dazzled 
by  the  blaze  of  gospel  light,  it  was  a  grand  discovery 
and  a  vast  advance  upon  the  previous  achievements 
of  the  human  mind.  It  is  like  uncovering  the  sun  to 
those  who  have  been  trying  to  strike  light  from  the 
flint,  or  digging  for  it  under  ground.  All  that  the 
schools  of  Greece  and  Egypt  and  the  East  had  been 
saying  for  a  course  of  ages  was — let  no  man  think 
that  he  lacks  wisdom,  for  he  has  it  in  himself— or  at 


JAMES  1,  2-8.  ^05 

most,  if  any  man  lack  wisdom,  let  him  come  to  me  ; 
but  M'lien  the  voice  of  the  Evangelizing  Angel  whom 
John  saw  in  his  apocalyptic  vision  became  audi- 
ble, the  schools  were  silent,  and  the  oracles  were 
dumb,  before  that  simple  precept  to  which  we  attach 
so  little  value — "  If  any  one  of  you  lack  wisdom,  let 
him  ask  of  God."  Hut  this  asking  of  God  was  to  the 
Greeks  a  mockery.  Even  those  who  believed  in  God 
had  no  conception  of  immediate  spiritual  intercourse 
with  God,  still  less  of  intellectual  illumination,  sent 
directly  from  him.  They  knew  what  it  was  to  work 
out  wisdom  for  themselves,  or  to  seek  for  wisdom  at 
the  hands  of  human  sages  ;  but  this  was  a  new  idea — 
"  If  any  of  you  lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God." 
And  that  not  as  a  ceremony,  but  a  means,  a  certain 
means  of  acquisition — not  of  God  the  unknown  and 
the  unapproachable,  but  God  the  giver,  God  who 
gives,  who  actually  gives,  has  given,  will  give  again, 
will  give  forever.  This  is  no  rash  venture,  but  a  mat- 
ter of  exjjerience.  You  are  only  asked  to  do- what 
others,  nay,  what  multitudes  have  done  before  you — 
ask  of  God,  of  God  himself  "What,  directly,  without 
any  mediation,  M'ithout  any  but  his  Son's,  without 
any  influence  but  that  of  his  Spirit,  which  is  his 
own,  without  the  intervention  of  philosophers  or 
priests,  without  circuitous  or  ceremonial  methods  of 
approach !  As  simply  as  a  child  asks  food  of  a  parent, 
"  if  any  of  you  lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God," 
"of  God  the  giver,  God  who  giveth," — who  habitually 
giveth,  not  to  certain  favoured  nations,  castes,  or  indi- 
viduals, but  to  all  men — not  to  Greeks  ov  Jews  alone, 
not  to  philosophers  or  priests  alone,  but  to  all  jnen — 


406  SEKMONS. 

yes,  to  all  men,  i.  e.  all  wlio  ask,  all  wlio  really  desire 
it,  all  who  ask  aright. 

Like  other  great  discoveries,  it  seems  almost  in« 
credible  that  this  should  never  have  been  stumbled 
on  before  ;  that  among  the  numberless  expedients  for 
supplj'ing  the  deficiencies  of  human  M'isdom,  this 
should  never  have  occurred,  in  its  simplicity,  to  any 
of  the  heathen  sages,  "  If  any  of  you  lack  wisdom, 
let  him  ask  of  God,  who  actually  giveth  unto  all  men." 
How?  In  what  way?  In  what  spirit?  There  is 
something  realh^  sublime  in  the  simplicity  with  which 
this  question  is  here  answered.  It  is  not  only  simple, 
but  simplicity  itself.  "  He  giveth  simply."  The  very 
grandeur  of  this  jjhrase  has  hindered  and  embarrassed 
its  interpretation.  It  seems  to  say  too  little,  when  in 
fact  it  says  too  much  for  us  to  compass.  It  seems  to 
be  irrelevant,  when  nothing  can  be  more  precisely 
adapted  to  the  end  proposed.  The  doubtful  and  sec- 
ondary meanings  which  have  been  preferred,  if  not 
inadmissible,  are  all  superfluous.  "  He  giveth  liber- 
ally "is  suggested  rather  than  expressed  ;  "he  giveth 
simply  "  is  the  naked  sense  of  the  original — or  per- 
haps it  may  be  rendered  -  more  precisely  still,  "he 
simply  gives," — he  gives — he  gives — and  that  is  all. 
He  does  not  give,  and  not  give,  as  some  men  too  often 
do  ;  he  does  not  give  and  take  as  some  men  do  ;  he 
does  not  give  and  nullify  the  kind  act  by  unkind  words 
or  disclosing  unkind  motives ;  he  does  not  give  as 
many  a  proud  human  benefactor  gives,  and  then  up- 
braid the  beneficiary  wnth  his  wants,  his  weakness,  his 
unworthiness,  his  former  gifts, — "  he  simply  gives  ;  " 
f'he   gives  to   all  men  and  upbraideth  not."    This 


JAMES  1,  2-8.  407 

human  propensity  to  mar  the  value  of  a  gift  by  mix- 
tures of  nnkinduess  or  ill-timed  severity,  was  so  fa- 
miliar to  the  ancients  as  to  be  embodied  in  their  pro- 
verbs. But  from  all  these  mixtures,  and  from  others 
like  them,  and  from  every  thing  that  poisons  human 
favours,  God's  are  infinitely,  wholly  free.  The  best 
of  men  give  only  to  some  objects,  and  with  some  ac- 
companj^ng  drawbacks  ;  but  he  simply  gives, — ho 
gives  to  all  men  and  npbraideth  not. 

My  brethren,  for  such  a  giver  is  it  too  much  to 
expect,  that  he  who  asks  shall  ask  in  faith  and  in  sin- 
cerity, desiring  wliat  he  asks,  believing  in  God's  will- 
ingness and  power  to  bestow  it  ?  If  God  giveth,  sim- 
pl^^  giveth,  and  npbraideth  not,  is  it  too  much  to  re- 
quire that  man  should  ask,  and  doubt  not,  and  dis- 
semble not,  and  waver  not?  If  God  gives  simply, 
singly,  with  a  pure,  unmixed,  unqualified  benevolence, 
is  it  too  much  to  require  that  num  should  not  ask 
doubl}^,  hypocritically — no  ;  nor  even  with  a  double 
mind  or  soul  in  a  less  offensive  sense,  the  sense  of  in- 
stability and  vacillation,  sometimes  wishing,  some- 
times not — now  asking  this,  now  that — asking,  and 
then  refusing  to  receive  the  very  thing  before  desired. 
Kespect  for  even  human  benefactors  requires  that  the 
petitioner  should  know  his  own  mind  before  asking, 
and  not  lightly  change  it  after  asking.  And  is  less 
respect  due  to  that  glorious  Giver,  who,  with  every 
reason  to  refuse  still  giveth,  and  with  every  right  to 
make  distinctions  giveth  unto  all  men  alike?  and 
with  every  right  aiul  ever}-  reason  to  accompany 
his  gifts  with  hard  conditions,  and  with  harsh  up- 
braidings,  simply  giveth,  freely  giveth  anil  \q>braideth 


408  SERMONS. 

not  ?  Is  it  too  miicli  for  him  to  say  of  every  one 
wlio  Jisketh,  "let  him  aslc  in  faith,  nothing  waver- 
ing," either  in  trnst  or  pnrpose — not  at  vurian-cc  with 
himself — not  self-contradictory  in  his  petitions — not  a 
man  of  two  minds,  or  of  two  sonls,  or  of  two  hearts 
hut  of  one,  and  that  one  fixed  on  God,  on  Christ? 
No  ;  so  easy  and  so  reasonable  a  condition  scarce  de- 
serves the  name,  especially  as  he  Avho  asks  it  gives  it. 
Well  might  the  wisest  of  the  Fathers  pray,  "  Give 
what  thou  reqnirest,  and  require  what  thou  wilt ! " 
It  is  an  insult  of  the  grossest  kind  to  God  the  giver, 
to  bring  into  his  presence  a  mind  tossing  with  tu- 
multuous and  inconsistent  passions,  like  the  troubled 
sea  which  cannot  rest,  but  casteth  up  mire  and  dirt. 
"  Let  not  that  man  think  that  he  shall  receive  any 
thing  of  the  Lord,"  but  only  he  who,  through  divine 
grace,  can  exclaim — "  My  heart  is  fixed,  oh  God,  my 
heart  is  fixed  !  "  The  man  whose  heart  is  Avavering 
and  double  is  not  merel}^  deficient  in  his  prayers,  but 
in  his  whole  religious  character,  of  which  his  prayers 
are  but  an  index  ;  he  is  inconsistent  and  inconstant, 
fickle  and  "  unstable  in  all  his  ways."  While  he  thus 
reasons  he  cannot  therefore  expect  God  to  give  him 
wisdom,  that  transcendent  wisdom,  without  which 
patience  cannot  have  her  j^erfect  work,  or  extract  her 
spiritual  food  out  of  the  medicine  of  trial  and  the  poi- 
son of  temptation.  And  yet  this  is  our  last  resort ;  if 
this  fail  us,  there  is  no  hope  elsewhere.  "Whither  shall 
we  turn  in  search  of  wisdom  but  to  Him  who  giveth 
freely  unto  all  men  and  upbraideth  not.  We  come 
back  therefore  to  the  conclusion,  that  if  any  man  lack 
wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God. 


XXII. 

Is/7  AH  h,  "".O. — "Woe  unto  them  that  cull  evil  good,  and  gootl  evil ; 
that  put  dorl  ncss  for  liglit,  and  light  for  durkucs^s;  that  put  bitter  for 
sweet,  and  tTcet  for  bitter  ! 

If  the  judgments  of  men  arc  liabitiuilly  influenced 
by  tb.rir  atfections,  it  is  not  surprising  that  their  speech 
slioild  bear  the  impress  of  the  same  controlling  power, 
WLat  we  iiear  men  say  in  the  way  of  passing  judg- 
ment upon  things  and  persons,  unless  said  deliberately 
for  the  2^111'poso  of  deceiving  those  who  hear  them, 
will  afiord  us,  for  the  most  i)art,  a  correct  idea  of  their 
dispositions  and  prevailing  inclinations.  There  is  in- 
deed a  customary  mode  of  talking,  practised  by  some 
men,  in  which  familiar  I'ornndas  of  praise  and  cen- 
sure, as  to  moral  objects,  are  employed  as  if  by  rote, 
involving  the  admission  of  important  ])rinciples,  antl 
recoffnizinfc  in  its  full  extent  the  irrand  distinction  be- 
tween  moral  good  and  evil.  Such  men  will  sj)eak 
familiarly  of  other  men,  and  of  their  acts,  as  right  or 
"wrong,  as  \irtuous  or  vicious,  in  a  manner  which  im- 
plies not  only  preference  of  judgment  but  of  incli- 
nation ;  so  that  if  we  draw  conclusions  from  their  lan- 
guage merely,  we  should  certainly  infer  that  they  not 
VOL.  n. — 17 


410  SERMOISS. 

only  understood  tlie  principles  of  sound  morality,  but 
loved  tliem  and  obeyed  them.  The  latter  conclusions 
would,  in  too  many  instances,  be  found  to  be  erroneous, 
not  because  the  person,  in  his  talk,  was  guilty  of  de- 
liberate hypocris}^,  or  even  intended  to  deceive  at  all, 
but  because  his  words  conveyed  more  than  he  meant, 
especially  when  phrases  used  of  course,  and  by  a  sort 
of  habit,  came  to  be  subjected  to  the  rules  of  a  strict 
interpretation.  But  in  all  such  cases  it  will  soon  be 
found,  upon  a  little  observation,  that  the  dialect  in 
question,  however  near  it  may  approach  to  that  of 
evangelical  morality,  is  still  distinguished  from  it  by 
indubitable  marks, — to  one  of  which  I  shall  direct 
your  notice,  and  have  no  doubt  that  it  will  be  imme- 
diately confirmed  by  your  own  experience. 

If,  then,  you  know  an}"  one  who  thus  indulges  in 
the  use  of  sucli  conventional  expressions  as  imply  a 
recognition  of  those  principles  of  morals  which  are 
laid  down  in  the  Bible,  but  whose  conduct,  on  the 
other  hand,  repudiates  and  nullifies  them — have  you 
not  observed,  that  in  expressing  his  opinions  upon 
moral  subjects,  he  avoids,  as  if  instinctively,  those 
terms  of  censure  and  of  approbation  which  belong 
distinctively  to  scripture,  and  confines  himself  to  those 
which  are  common  to  the  Bible  and  the  lieathen  mor- 
alists, to  Christian  ethics  and  the  code  of  honour. 
He  will  speak  of  an  act,  or  a  course  of  acts,  as  wrong, 
perhaps  as  vicious, — it  may  even  be  as  wicked,  but 
not  as  sinful.  There  are  crimes  and  vices,  but  no 
sins  in  his  vocabulary.  The  difference  between  the 
terms,  as  viewed  by  such  a  person,  seems  to  be  that 
vice  and  crime  are  referable  merely  to  an  abstract 


ISAIAH  5,  20.  4]^]^ 

standard,  and  perhaps  a  variable  Ohc  ;  while  sin  briiiijs 
into  view  the  legislative  and  judicial  character  of 
God. 

Sin  too  is  associated,  in  most  minds,  with  the  hu- 
miliating doctrine  of  a  natural  depravity,  -while  vice 
and  crime  suggest  the  idea  of  a  voluntary  aberration 
on  the  part  of  one,  by  nature  free  from  taint,  and 
abundantly  able  to  stand  fast  in  his  own  strength. 
By  tracing  such  diversities,  however  slight  and  trivial 
they  seem  to  be  when  in  themselves  considered,  we 
may  soon  learn  to  distinguish  the  characteristic  dialect 
of  worldly  moralists  from  that  of  evangelical  religion. 
It  will  also  be  found,  that  in  the  use  of  terms  cm- 
ployed  by  both,  there  is  a  difference  of  sense,  it  may 
be  unintentional,  denoting  no  small  difference  in 
point  of  principle.  Especially  is  this  the  case  in 
reference  to  those  important  jirinciplcs  of  morals 
which  bear  most  directly  upon  the  ordinary  business 
of  life,  and  come  most  frequently  into  collision  with 
the  selfish  interests  and  inclinations  of  ungodly  men. 
Two  men  for  instance  shall  converse  together  upon 
truth  and  falsehood,  upon  honesty  and  fraud,  employ- 
ing the  same  words  and  phrases,  and  perhaps  awaro 
of  no  diversity  of  meaning  in  their  application.  In 
their  principles  and  feelings  they  shall  seem  to  coin- 
cide, both  ajjproving  and  condenming  with  a  perfect 
unanimity.  And  yet  when  you  come  to  ascertain  the 
sense  in  which  they  severally  use  the  terms  employed 
by  both,  you  shall  find  that  while  the  one  adoj^ts  the 
rigorous  and  simple  rule  of  truth  and  falsehood,  wliich 
is  laid  down  in  the  Bible  and  by  common  sense,  the 
other  holds  it  with  so  many  qualifications  and  cxcep- 


412  SERMONS. 

tions,  as  almost  to  render  it  a  rule  more  honoured 
in  the  breach  than  the  observance.  Tlie  one  is  so 
tolerant  of  innocent  deceptions,  and  of  jocose  lies,  or 
of  conventional  concealments  and  pretences  in  the 
^v£ij  of  business,  that  the  other,  when  he  comes  to 
understand  him,  finds  the  ground  on  which  he  stood 
swept  away  by  these  insidious  refinements,  and  begins 
to  feel  that  even  in  morals  the  old  proverb  is  a  true 
one,  what  is  one  man's  food  may  be  another  man's 
poison. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  unperceived  and 
undefinable  diversity  in  the  use  of  language,  exerts  u 
constant  and  extensive  influence  on  human  inter- 
course, and  leads  to  many  of  those  misconceptions 
which  are  tending  daily  to  increase  the  mucual  dis- 
trust of  men  in  one  another's  candour  and  sincerity. 
But  while  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  the  language 
which  men  hold  in  regard  to  moral  subjects,  is  not, 
in  every  case,  a  sure  criterion  of  their  own  dispo- 
sitions, even  where  there  is  no  direct  intention  to 
deceive ;  there  remains,  after  all  allowable  deduc- 
tion upon  this  score,  an  extensive  field  of  curious  and 
profitable  observation.  There  are  multitudes  of  in- 
stances, to  wdiich  the  force  of  habit  and  colloquial 
usage,  as  explained  already,  do  not  reach,  a,nd  which 
are  therefore  fair  occasions  for  employing  men's  ex- 
pressions as  a  test  of  their  secret  inclinations  and  the 
state  of  their  affections.  And  in  this  there  is  very 
little  danger  of  injustice  to  the  subject  of  the  scrutiny. 
The  cases  which  have  been  already  menti(med  arc 
exceptions  to  the  general  rule,  or  rather  to  its  rigid 
application,  that  "  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart 


ISAIAH  5,  20.  413 

the  moutli  speaketli ; "  all  tend  to  favoTir  liim  wliosc 
words  are  taken  as  an  index  to  his  character.  The 
exception  which  has  been  admitted  is  not  that  men 
are  often  better  than  tlieir  words  would  represent 
them,  bnt  the  contrary.  If  indeed  it  were  commonly 
or  often  true  that  men  employ  language  which  im- 
plies a  denial  or  a  disregard  of  moral  distinctions, 
and  indeed  a  preference  of  evil  to  good,  while  in  fact 
they  are  not  only  sound  in  judgment,  ujDon  this  es- 
sential point,  but  cordially  disposed  to  give  the  pref- 
erence to  virtue,  then  indeed  it  might  be  possible  to 
do  them  gross  injustice  by  the  use  of  sucli  a  test. 

But  who  pretends  to  think  that  men  are  often,  I 
might  almost  say  ever,  better  in  the  bent  of  their  af- 
fections and  their  moral  dispositions  than  in  the  gen- 
eral drift  of  their  discourse?  Who  does  not  know 
that  they  arc  often  worse,  and  that  where  any  marked 
diversity  exists,  tlie  difference  is  commonly  in  favour 
of  his  words  at  the  expense  of  his  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings ?  If  we  err  therefore  in  the  application  of  the 
test  proposed,  we  are  far  more  apt  to  err  in  favour  of 
the  subject  than  against  him.  If  liis  words  are  in 
truth  an  exponent  of  his  feelings,  we  shall  do  him 
justice ;  if  not,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  tliat 
lie  is  worse  than  he  appears  to  be.  Let  it,  liowevcr, 
be  observed,  that  nothing  could  be  more  unjust  or 
utterly  subversive  of  impartial  judgment,  in  this 
matter,  than  to  choose  as  tests  or  symptoms  mere  oc- 
casional expressions.  Few  men  are  so  bad  that  they 
never  speak  good  sentiments.  And  alas  for  the  best, 
if  they  must  stand  or  fall  by  their  ability  or  inability 
to  prove  that  they  have  never  uttered  splenetic,  or 


414  SERMONS. 

frivolous,  or  unbecoming  langnage.  The  lioliest  men 
have  had  occasion  to  lament  their  own  delinquencies 
in  this  respect ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  notorious 
profligates  and  unbelievers  have  been  known  to  utter 
sentiments  of  pure  and  stern  morality,  with  such  ap- 
parent earnestness  and  candour,  that  the  hearers 
might  have  been  excused  for  crying  out,  "  Is  Saul 
also  among  the  prophets  ?  "  It  is  not  by  such  ebul- 
litions, whether  good  or  evil,  that  the  heart  is  to  be 
judged,  but  by  the  general  tone  and  tenor  of  the  con- 
versation upon  moral  subjects.  It  would  not  be  just 
or  safe  to  say  that  he  who  has  been  known  to  bear  his 
testimony  to  the  excellence  of  virtue,  is  a  good  man, 
even  in  the  worldly  sense  ;  or  on  the  other  hand,  that 
he  who  has  been  heard  to  speak  deridingly,  or  spite- 
fully, or  doubtfully  of  fundamental  principles  in  mor- 
als, is  infallibly  a  villain,  though  the  latter  conclusion 
would  be  far  more  warrantable  than  the  former,  for  a 
reason  befoi'c  stated.  But  it  may  be  said  with  due 
regard  to  truth  and  justice,  in  the  abstract,  and  in 
application  to  the  character  of  individuals,  that  he 
wdio  habitually,  and  as  if  by  impulse,  takes  the  side  of 
virtue,  without  partiality  and  without  hypocrisy,  is 
virtuous  himself ;  and  that  he  who  in  like  manner  is 
invariably  prompted,  when  there  is  no  outward  coun- 
teracting influence,  to  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil, 
is  one  who,  like  the  fallen  angel,  says  in  his  heart, 
"  Evil,  be  thou  my  good  !  "  and  is  therefore  a  just 
subject  of  the  woe  denounced  by  the  prophet  in  the 
text.  It  may  indeed  be  thought  that  this  expression 
is  descriptive,  not  so  much  of  those  who  hate  good 


ISAIAH  5,  20.  4i5 

and  love  evil,  as  of  those  who  err  as  to  wtat  is  good 
and  what  is  evil. 

But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  a  rational  nature 
is  incapable  of  loving  evil,  simply  viewed  as  evil,  or 
of  iiating  good,  wlicn  simply  viewed  as  good.  What- 
ever thing  you  love,  you  thereby  recognize  as  good  ; 
and  what  you  hate  or  abhor,  you  thereby  recognize 
as  eval.  To  hate  a  thing,  and  yet  regard  it  as  a  good 
thing,  is  a  mere  contradiction,  if  the  terms  be  taken 
in  the  same  sense,  or  referred  to  the  same  standard 
of  comparison.  No  man  can  dislike  a  taste,  or  smell, 
or  sound  which,  at  the  same  time,  he  regards  as 
pleasant,  nor  can  he  like  one  which  he  thinks  un- 
pleasant. To  regard  a  thing  as  pleasant  is  to  like  it, 
and  to  dislike  it  is  to  think  it  disagrccal)le.  But 
change  the  standard  of  comparison,  and  what  aj)- 
pcared  impossible  is  realized.  The  music  which  is 
sweetest  to  your  ear  may  be  offensi^'e  when  it  breaks 
the  slumber  of  your  sleeping  friend  ;  the  harshest 
voice  may  charm  you  when  it  announces  that  your 
friend  still  lives.  The  darling  sin  is  hated  by  the 
sinner  as  the  means  of  his  damnation,  though  he  loves 
it  as  the  source  of  present  pleasure ;  and  in  proportion 
as  the  present  and  the  future  world  are  present  to  his 
thoughts  and  his  belief,  may  his  affections  vary  as 
to  the  same  object.  "When,  therefore,  men  profess  to 
look  upon  that  as  excellent  which  in  their  hearts  and 
lives  they  treat  as  hateful,  and  to  regard  as  evil  and 
abominable  that  which  they  arc  seeking  after,  and 
which  they  delight  in,  they  are  not  expressing  their 
own  feelings,  but  assenting  to  the  judgment  of  others. 
They  are  measuring  the  object  by  a  borrowed  stand- 


416  SERMONS. 

ard,  while  their  own  is  wholly  different.  And  if 
they  are  really  so  far  enlightened  as  to  think  sincerely 
that  the  objects  of  their  passionate  attachment  are 
evil,  this  is  only  admitting  that  their  own  affections 
are  disordered  and  at  variance  with  reason.  It  is  vir- 
tually saying :  Such  a  thing  is  good  to  my  perceptions, 
but  I  know  that  they  are  wrong.  It  is  just  as  if  a 
man's  sense  of  taste  should  be  so  vitiated  through 
disease  that  what  is  sweet  to  others,  is  to  him  a  pun- 
gent bitter.  He  may  be  convinced  by  argument  and 
testimony,  that  according  to  the  natural  perceptions 
of  mankind  the  thing  is  sweet,  and  that  the  bitterness 
is  in  his  own  disordered  palate.  This  may  satisfy  his 
reason,  but  whenever  that  same  object  comes  in  con- 
tact with  his  palate,  it  will  still  be  bitter,  till  its 
qualities  are  changed,  or  his  organs  of  taste  resume 
their  natural  and  healthful  functions.  So  the  sinner 
may  believe  on  God's  authority  or  man's,  that  sin  is 
evil  and  that  holiness  is  good,  but  as  a  matter  of  af- 
fection and  of  inclination,  his  corrupted  taste  will 
still  reject  the  sweet  as  bitter  and  receive  the  bitter 
as  sweet ;  his  diseased  eye  will  still  confoimd  light 
with  darkness,  and  his  lips,  whenever  they  express 
the  feelings  of  his  heart,  will  continue  to  call  good 
evil  and  evil  good. 

These  three  forms  of  expression  in  the  text  appear 
to  be  significant  of  one  and  the  same  thing.  The 
thought  is  clothed,  first,  in  literal,  and  then  in  meta- 
phorical expressions.  To  put  darkness  for  light  and 
light  for  darkness  ;  to  put  bitter  for  sweet,  and  sweet 
for  bitter ;  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  to  call  evil 
good  and  good  evil,  or,  as  the  same  idea  is  differently 


ISAIAH  5,  20.  ^I'J 

worded  in  the  margin,  to  say  of  evil  it  is  good,  and 
of  good  it  is  evil.  The  character  thus  draAvn  is  gen- 
erally applicable  to  ungodly  men.  They  all  put  dark- 
ness for  liglit  and  light  for  darkness.  They  all  put 
bitter  for  sweet  and  sweet  for  bitter.  Tliey  all  call 
evil  good  and  good  evil.  If  the  verse  be  taken  merely 
in  this  general  sense,  the  woe  which  it  pronounces  is 
a  general  woe,  or  declaration  of  divine  displeasure 
and  denunciation  of  impending  wrath  agamst  the 
wicked  generally,  simply  equivalent  to  that  in  the 
third  chapter,  (verse  11,)  "  "Woe  unto  the  wicked !  it 
shall  be  ill  with  him,  for  the  reward  of  his  hands  shall 
be  given  him." 

Such  a  declaration,  awful  as  it  is,  and  perfectly  in 
keeping  with  the  uniform  tenor  of  the  word  of  God, 
would  furnish  no  specific  test  of  character,  because  it 
would  still  leave  the  question  undecided,  who  it  is 
that  chooses  evil  and  rejects  the  good.  But  it  is  very 
obvious  that,  in  the  case  before  us,  the  prophet  is  very 
far  from  meaning  merely  to  assert  the  general  liability 
of  binners  to  the  wrath  of  God.  The  text  is  the  fourth 
in  a  series  of  six  woes,  denounced  upon  as  many  out- 
ward manifestations  of  corrupt  affection.  Under 
the  figure  of  a  vineyard  which,  though  sedulously 
cultivated,  only  produced  wild  grapes,  he  had  roi)re- 
sented  the  ungi'ateful  and  miprofitable  service  of  the 
ancient  Israel,  explaining  the  parable  and  summing  up 
its  lessons  in  the  seventh  verse :  "  The  vineyard  of  the 
Lord  of  Hosts  is  the  house  of  Israel,  and  the  men  of 
Judali  his  pleasant  plant :  and  he  looked  for  judg- 
ment, but  behold  oppression ;  for  righteousness,  but 
behold  a  cry."      From   this   general    and   sweeping 

VOL.  II.— 18* 


418  SERMONS. 

charge  against  the  nation,  he  proceeds  to  an  enumera- 
tion of  particular  oftences  then  especially  prevailing, 
but  bj  no  means  limited  to  that  age  or  country  :  and 
he  sets  these  forth,  not  as  the  product  of  so  many  evil 
principles,  but  as  the  varied  exhibition  of  that  uni- 
versal and  profound  corruption  which  he  had  just 
asserted  to  exist,  in  general  terms. 

The  first  of  these  specified  corruptions  is  the 
avaricious  and  ambitious  grasping  after  great  posses- 
sions, not  merely  as  a  means  of  luxurious  indulgence, 
but  as  a  distinction  and  a  gratification  of  pride : 
"  Woe  unto  them  that  join  house  to  house,  that  lay 
field  to  field,  till  there  be  no  place,  that  they  may  be 
placed  alone  in  the  midst  of  the  earth,"  (v.  8.)  Is  this 
an  obsolete  iniquity  in  our  day,  and  especially  in  our 
favoured  country,  where  the  rich  and  poor  so  often 
exchange  places,  and  where  the  children  of  poor 
parents  can  aspire  to  be  the  masters  of  the  soil,  ay, 
and  stop  their  ears  against  the  claims  of  their  poor 
creditors,  that  they  whose  inheritance  was  nothing 
may  lay  field  to  field,  and  be  placed  alone  in  the 
midst  of  the  earth  ?  "  In  mine  ears,  saitli  the  Lord  of 
Hosts,  of  a  truth  many  houses  shall  be  desolate,  even 
great  and  fair  without  inhabitant."  It  was  to  such 
that  the  projjhet  threatened  woe,  and  to  such  that  the 
apostle  James  exclaimed  long  afterwards :  "  Behold 
the  hire  of  your  labourers  who  have  reaped  down 
your  fields,  which  is  of  you  kept  back  by  fraud, 
crieth  ;  and  the  cries  of  them  which  have  reaped  are 
entered  into  the  ears  of  the  Lord  of  Sabaoth." 
(Jas.  6,  4.) 

The  next  form  of  iniquity  denounced  is  drunken- 


ISAIAH  5,  20.  4;[9 

ness :  "  "Woe  unto  tliem  that  rise,  \\p  early  in  the 
morning,  that  they  may  follow  strong  drink ;  that 
continue  until  night  till  wine  inflame  them,"  (v.  11.) 
Is  this  too  a  peculiar  yice  of  ancient  times,  unknown  in 
modern  civilized  society ,  and  alas,  that  I  should  say 
it,  in  the  church  of  God  ?  In  this,  as  in  the  first  case, 
the  description  of  the  crime  is  followed  by  its  punish- 
ment, including  not  only  personal  hut  national  calam- 
ities, as  war,  desolation,  and  captivity.  The  third  sin 
is  that  of  the  presumptuous,  blaspheming  sinner,  who 
goes  on  to  sin,  not  that  grace  may  abound,  but  that 
God  may  take  vengeance :  "  AYoc  unto  them  that 
draw  iniquity  with  cords  of  vanity,  and  sin  as  it  were 
with  a  cart  rope  :  that  say,  let  him  make  speed  and 
hasten  his  work,  that  we  may  see  it ;  and  let  the 
counsel  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel  draw  nigh  and 
come  that  we  may  know  it,"  (vs.  18,  19.)  Have  we 
no  such  blasphemers,  or  at  least  such  tacit  challengers 
of  vengeance  ?  Let  your  eyes,  and  ears,  and  mem- 
ory, and  conscience  answer. 

The  fourth  form  in  iniquity  is  set  fortli  in  the  text. 
The  fifth  is  that  of  overweening  confidence  in  limnan 
reason  as  opposed  to  God's  unerring  revelation : 
"  Woe  unto  them  that  are  wise  in  their  own  eyes, 
and  prudent  in  their  own  sight ;  "  another  marked 
and  hideous  feature  in  the  age  in  which  we  live.  Tlie 
sixth  is  drunkeimess,  considered,  not  a  sin  the  former 
case,  under  the  aspect  of  a  personal  excess,  producing 
inconsideration  and  neglect  of  God,  but  as  a  vice  of 
magistrates  and  rulers,  and  as  leading  to  o]>]U"cssion 
and  all  practical  injustice  :  "  AVoe  unto  them  tliat  arc 
raightv  to  drink  wine,  and  men  of  strength  to  mingle 


420  SER5I0XS. 

strong  drink,  wliicli  justify  the  wicked  for  reward, 
and  take  away  the  riglit  of  the  righteous  from  him," 
(vs.  22,  23.)  I  should  bhish  for  my  country  if  compelled 
to  answer  to  the  question,  whether  such  excesses  have 
not  been  associated  even  in  her  borders  with  official 
power  and  official  influence ;  and  I  must  tremble  for 
my  country,  when  I  hear  the  voice  of  God  proclaim- 
ing as  the  consequence  of  this  incestuous  connection 
between  vice  and  power  :  "  Therefore  as  the  fire  de- 
voureth  the  stubble,  and  the  flame  consumeth  the 
chafi",  so  their  root  shall  be  as  rottenness,  and  their 
blossom  shall  go  up  as  dust :  because  they  have  cast 
away  the  law  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  and  despised  the 
word   of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,"  (v.  21.) 

This  rapid  reca})itulation  of  the  context  I  have 
given  for  two  reasons  :  1,  to  show  that  in  this  whole 
passage,  the  prophet  has  reference  to  species  of  ini- 
quity familiar  to  our  own  time  and  country  ;  and  2, 
chiefly  to  evince,  that  in  the  text  we  have  not  a  mere 
denunciation  of  Clod's  wrath  upon  wickedness  in  gen- 
eral, but  the  description  of  a  certain  outward  form  in 
which  the  prevailing  wickedness  betrayed  itself.  It 
does  not  teacli  us  merely  that  punishment  awaits  those 
who  choose  evil  in  preference  to  good,  but  that  an 
outward  mark  of  those  who  hate  God,  and  whom  God 
designs  to  punish,  is  their  confounding  moral  distinc- 
tions in  their  conversation ;  calling  evil  good  and 
good  evil,  putting  darkness  for  light  and  light  for 
darkness,  putting  bitter  for  sweet  and  sweet  for  bitter. 
As  the  otlier  symptoms  of  a  general  con-uption,  which 
arc  here  enumerated,  have  their  counterparts  in  mod- 
ern times,  and  in  the  world  around  us,  we  are  war- 


ISAIAH  5,  20.  423 

ranted  in  thinking  that  tlie  analogy  holds  good  in 
this  case  also,  and  that  among  the  surest  signs  of 
those  who  hate  God,  and  whom  God  abhors,  is  their 
habitual,  instinctive  disposition  to  call  evil  good  and 
good  evil. 

How  this  is  done,  I  now  invite  you  to  consider, 
not  as  a  theme  of  abstract  speculation,  or  as  a  matter 
of  fact  in  which  you  feel  no  individual  conceni,  but 
as  a  practical  and  personal  inquiry  of  the  deepest 
moment,  which,  as  rational  and  conscientious  beings, 
you  are  bound  to  answer  each  one  for  himself.  And 
in  suggesting  this  inquiry,  I  assume  that  all  who  hear 
me  are  respectful  hearers  of  the  gospel,  and  professed 
believers  in  the  truth  of  Christianity  ;  that  none  of  you 
are  wont  to  call  in.  question  any  of  its  fundamental 
doctrines,  much  less  to  carp  at  the  first  principles 
of  morals.  You  admit  distinctly  the  essential  differ- 
ence of  right  and  wrong ;  the  excellence  of  truth, 
and  the  turpitude  of  falsehood  ;  the  superiority  of 
reason  and  conscience  to  appetite  and  passion  as  the 
guides  of  human  conduct ;  you  allow  tlie  will  of  God 
to  be  a  binding  rule  of  action,  and  the  Bible  to  be  a 
revelation  of  that  will.  Yon  grant  that  it  reveals  the 
only  method  of  salvation  for  a  ruined  world,  and  that 
whatever  tends  to  make  it  known,  and  give  it  prac- 
tical efficiency,  contributes  to  the  happiness  and  ele- 
vation of  the  human  race. 

From  none  of  these  important  doctrines  would 
you  perhaps  be  willing  to  dissent  in  terms,  and  so 
far  you  are  innocent  of  calling  evil  good  and  good 
evil.  1  do  not  ask  you  whether  by  your  conduct  you 
are  not  belying  your  profession  of  these  principles ; 


422  SERMONS. 

for  difficult  to  answer  as  the  question  might  be,  it 
would  interrupt  the  train  of  thought  which  we  have 
been  pursuing.  But  the  question  which  I  ask  is  this ; 
when  one  who  thus  admits  in  words  the  great  first 
principles  of  morals,  takes  away  so  much  on  on 
hand,  and  grants  so  much  on  the  other,  as  to  obliter- 
ate the  practical  distinction  between  right  and  wrong ; 
when  with  one  breath  he  asserts  the  inviolable  sanc- 
tity of  truth,  but  with  the  next  breath  makes  provi- 
sion for  benevolent,  professional,  jocose,  or  thoughtless 
falsehood  ;  when  in  the  abstract  he  asserts  the  claims 
of  justice,  and  the  obligation  to  give  every  man  his 
own,  but  in  application  to  specific  cases  thinks  it  law- 
ful to  enrich  himself  at  other  men's  expense,  or  to 
take  advantage  of  another's  weakness,  ignorance,  or 
error ;  when  he  admits  the  paramount  importance  of 
religious  duties  in  the  general,  but  in  detail  dissects 
away  the  vital  parts  as  superstition,  sanctimony,  or 
fanaticism,  and  leaves  a  mere  abstraction  or  an  out- 
ward form  behind  ;  when  he  approves  the  requisitions 
of  the  law  and  the  provisions  of  the  gospel  in  so  far 
as  they  apply  to  other  people,  but  repudiates  them 
as  applying  to  himself;  when  any  one  does  this,  or 
any  part  of  this,  or  any  th'ng  analogous  to  this,  I  ask, 
whatever  his  professions  oi  his  creed  may  be,  whether 
he  does  not  virtually,  actually,  call  evil  good  and 
good  evil. 

Again,  I  ask  you,  whether  he  who  in  the  general 
admits  the  turpitude  of  fraud,  impurity,  intemperance, 
malignity,  and  other  vicious  dispositions  with  their 
practical  efi'ects,  and  thus  appears  to  be  an  advocate 
for  purity  of  morals,  but  when   insulated   cases  or 


ISAIAH  5,  20.  423 

Bpecitic  acts  of  vice  are  made  the  subject  ci  discussion, 
treats  them  all  as  peccadilloes,  inadvertencies,  absurd- 
ities, indiscretions,  or  perhaps  as  virtues  modestly  dis- 
guised ;  whether  he  who  condemns  drunkenness,  but 
clears  the  drunkard  ;  he  \vho  frowns  upon  fraud,  but 
smiles  upon  the  fashionable  swindler  or  defaulter  ;  he 
who  hates  licentiousness,  but  loves  the  libertine ;  is 
horror-struck  at  murder,  but  can  fawn  upon  the  duel- 
list and  flatter  the  assassin  ;  I  ask,  whether  he  who 
does  all  this  can  be  protected  by  the  mere  assertion  of 
a  few  general  principles  from  the  fatal  charge  of  call- 
ing evil  good.  And,  as  the  counterpart  of  this,  I  ask 
you  whether  he  who  praises  and  admires  all  goodness, 
not  embodied  in  the  life  of  living  men  or  women,  but 
detests  it  when  thus  realized  in  concrete  excellence ; 
who  praises  piety,  but  blames  the  pious  ;  who  extols 
benevolence,  but  doubts  the  motives  of  the  few  who 
practise  it ;  who  honours  warm  devotion,  but  laughs 
the  wretched  devotee  to  scorn  ;  in  short,  who  wor- 
ships virtue  as  a  being  in  the  clouds,  but  hates  her 
when  incarnate  in  the  form  of  a  reproving  example  ; 
whether  he  who  does  all  this,  docs  not  really  and 
practically  call  good  evil. 

And  I  ask  you,  lastly,  wliether  he  who,  in  relation 
to  the  self-same  acts,  performed  by  men  of  opposite 
descriptions,  has  a  judgment  suited  to  the  case  of 
each,  a  pillar  of  fire  one  way  and  of  cloud  the  other, 
but  the  daik  side  turned  to  Israel  and  the  bright  to 
the  Egyptians;  all  compassion  to  the  wilful  trans- 
gressions of  the  wicked,  and  all  inexorable  sternness 
to  the  innocent  infirmities  of  godly  men  ;  he  who 
Strains  at  a  gnat  in  the  behaviour  of  the  meek  and 


4:24:  SEBMONS. 

conscientious  Christian,  but  can  swallow  a  camel  in 
the  conduct  of  the  self-indulgent  votary  of  pleasure  ; 
he  who  lauds  religion  as  exhibited  in  those  who  give 
him  no  uneasiness  by  their  example,  but  maligns  and 
disparages  it  when,  from  its  peculiar  strength  and 
brightness,  it  reflects  a  glare  of  painful  and  intolerable 
light  upon  his  own  corruptions ; — I  ask  whether  he 
who  does  all  this,  let  his  maxims  of  moral  philosophy 
be  what  they  will,  does  not,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, incur  the  woe  pronounced  on  those  who  call 
evil  good  and  good  evil,  who  put  darkness  for  light 
and  light  for  darkness,  who  put  bitter  for  sweet  and 
sweet  for  bitter.  Ah,  my  hearers,  these  distinctions 
may  at  present  appear  arbitrary,  frivolous,  or  false, 
and  as  a  necessary  consequence,  the  guilt  of  confound- 
ing them  may  fade  almost  to  nothing,  to  a  stain  so 
faint  upon  the  conscience  as  to  need  no  blood  of  ex- 
piation to  remove  it.  In  the  present  darkness  of  your 
minds,  that  stain  may  even  disappear.  But  methinks 
I  see  already  the  faint  glimmer  of  a  light  which  is  to 
play  wpon  that  fatal  spot  until  it  glows  and  sparkles, 
a  deep,  indelible,  and  damning  spot.  The  day  is 
coming  when  the  eye  of  reason  shall  no  longer  find  it 
possible  to  look  at  light  and  darkness  as  the  same ; 
when  the  moral  perceptions,  become  acute  to  agony, 
shall  cease  forever  to  confound  the  sweetness  of  true 
holiness  with  the  envenomed  gall  and  wormwood  of 
an  evil  conscience ;  and  the  woe  already  heard,  shall 
then  be  seen  and  felt ;  seen  by  the  sinner  in  the 
writhings  of  his  fellow-sinners,  felt  more  intensely  in 
his  own.  From  that  state  many  will  look  back  and 
wonder  at  themselves,  and  at  what  they  now  are  do- 


I 


ISAIAH  5,  20.  425 

ing  in  despite  of  reason,  conscience,  and  experience, 
and  with  that  solemn  admonition  ringing  in  their  ears, 
"  Woe  mito  them  that  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil ; 
that  put  darkness  for  light,  and  light  for  darkness ; 
that  put  bitter  for  sweet,  and  sweet  for  bitter."  From 
the  darkness  and  the  bitterness  of  that  damnation, 
may  we  all  find  deliverance  through  Jesus  Chi-ist  our 
Lord. 


THE    EKD. 


< 


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